Are imprecise tools an artist's best friend?

I used to watch a YouTube artist who was a fan of using oversized paint brushes on his canvases. He argued that being precise with imprecise tools led to interesting errors.

In the world of painting, I agree 100%.

But in the business world?

Give me the right tool for the job. Give me the easiest path to precision. When it comes to business, there's little I hate more than being expected to hit the bullseye with one hand tied behind my back.

But, in art, working with imprecise tools can be a useful limitation.

Look no further than the fact that we often rely on our memory, perhaps the best example of an imprecise tool, to replicate scenes we've previously experienced to bring them back to life as art. Faulty memory can be an asset in literary fiction, which often focuses on the feeling of the events rather than getting every event right.

Sometimes our imprecise tools may even be digital or technical.

Generative AI has had no hand in the writing of my novel, but it's had a small hand in the ideation—or discovery of the angle of my story—as I've had a few chats with Anthropic's Claude LLM related to some themes of my novel.

I didn't ask Claude which themes I should put in my story, and I didn't ask it how I'd fit those themes into my story. I didn't ask Claude if my protagonist should take the blue pill or the red pill.

I instead asked Claude questions related to some scientific interests (related to time and the concept of living in a simulation). I asked, if X is true, is it reasonable to assume Y?—and Claude would tell me if I was on the right track or not.

I'm sure Claude got some things wrong. But, for once, that's fine. In fact, these errors might be features rather than bugs.

That's because my novel, too, is an exercise in being precise with imprecise tools—such as memory, perception, time, and maybe even reality itself.

Maybe, sometimes, the imprecise tools are just what we need for the job.

Not every job.

Just a select few.