AI is everywhere. Even if you don’t want to use it, it’s impossible not to. Google is flush with AI-generated results. Spotify has AI-generated playlists (and music). Rental car companies are using AI to scan vehicles to check for damage. And in schools, teachers are spending real time grading papers students used AI to write.
AI feels like its being forced upon us from all angles. That makes it easy to see things in black and white. AI is amazing or awful. Helpful or harmful. And I admit my gut reaction to AI is it’s all bad, particularly when it comes to creativity. In the future, will we, like the crew of the Nostromo, be expendable? But perhaps its not that black and white. Maybe it’s about learning how to use new tools without losing the messy process and human soul of creativity.
Creation.
Creativity is messy. It meanders and wanders and takes the road less traveled. Sometimes the creative act demands we simply sit and stare at the grass. Other times it asks us to fill a room with post-it notes and drawings and books. To write this piece, I used notecards to physically outline my ideas, rearranging them in the real world, piece by piece, while my dog stepped on them. And it’s in this mess that synchronicities happen and random sparks of inspiration appear as one idea lands next to another. New ideas grow from our precious collection of seeds and sprouts.
This messy process leads to better, more interesting work. More random, yes. Slower, definitely. But ultimately more fulfilling and soulful for the creator. When we get AI involved, we lower the chances of the serendipitous. And when we see AI as the creation itself, and not as a simply a tool, we start to lose what makes creativity magical.
Tools.
As humans, we’ve always used whatever tools were available to us. Rocks. Spears. Charcoal. Paint. Cameras. Computers. AI is the latest tool in the stack. No technology is inherently good or bad. What matters is how it’s used.
Let’s look at the world of design. The computer was often seen as “cheating” when the Mac arrived in the mid 1980s. There was a way design was done, and this new box wasn’t it (cue Abe Simpson). Doing the craft of design the old way was definitely better. However, as computer layout became available, people began to realize that technology made design fast and fresh and allowed a designer to create many options very quickly without wasting physical resources or time. The new wasn’t so scary anymore.
Now, using AI to write or brainstorm ideas or code feels like cheating. Why? Because it is cheating? Or because it’s new? Cheating is when creative work is done solely by AI and then passed off as a human creation, with no editing or review by an artist or creator. From first hand experience, “prompt creation” requires creativity, to be sure. But writing a good prompt is not the same as creating the end product itself. For me, the line is clear: don’t pass off generic AI-generated work without applying your own thinking and refinement.
Our tools shape what we create. Design had new trends, styles, and techniques open up when the Mac came around. New possibilities in image making were created when the camera was invented. And now, AI is opening up possibilities we never had before. But the critical component remains the human. Creativity requires our own thinking and logic and taste to create something great without letting the machines take the lead themselves.
Taste.
At the risk of sounding like a snob, many people can’t tell the difference between good and bad creative work. This has always been true. AI hasn’t changed that. The difference now is that people with bad taste (or who simply don’t care about human craft and quality) can create what they want themselves. In the past, their idea or vision would still have needed an artist to bring it to life. And that artist would have been putting their own care and craft into the finished product. There have always been different tastes in art, design, and music. But never before have so many people had the ability to simply make whatever they want themselves. People who once would have gone to an artist to create something will now use AI because, to them, AI is good enough. They don’t know the difference. And AI doesn’t either.
AI doesn’t know the difference between good and bad. It just mimics. AI is creating a blanding of art and design and creativity. Just as AirBnbs tend to look generic and bland, writing and imagery are starting to have an “AI” look as people with bad or no taste put things out into the world that offend no one but also don’t inspire anyone.
My vision is that creative professionals who care and put human soul into their work will become desired in the same way fancy coffee and vinyl records are. When you want the “good stuff,” call us. Independent or very small teams will be the way forward. When I imagine the flood of mediocre, generic work that will flood the market with thanks to AI tools, I see an opportunity steer people in a different direction. Perhaps a minority of people will be willing to pay for that difference, but those are probably the best clients, too. The moral of the story is that taste and technology are not the same thing.
Technology.
I grew up in Amish country, surrounded by idyllic fields, buggies, and barns. It can be very puzzling to people when the Amish refuse technology like cars or cell phones, yet they have barns full of high-tech CNC machines. It sure seems like some kind of hypocrisy, right? Nope. It’s all very intentional.
The Amish approach all new technology from the perspective of what it means for their way of life. Will it make their community stronger? Or will it cause cracks to form? Here’s a quote from Kevin Kelly that does a great job explaining what I mean:
“When cars first appeared at the turn of the last century, the Amish noticed that drivers would leave the community to go picnicking or sightseeing in other towns, instead of visiting family or the sick on Sundays, or patronizing local shops on Saturday. Therefore the ban on unbridled mobility was intended to make it hard to travel far and to keep energy focused in the local community.”
There are great parallels here to AI and creativity. The Amish are selective about what technology they choose to bring into their daily lives because certainly technology makes their community less human. And in our creative lives, we need to be selective about what technology we allow in because some technology makes our work less human.
Work.
Like most people, the idea of losing my job to AI has certainly crossed my mind. But understanding the difference between “tasks” and “jobs” has made me see things differently.
In 1975, the day-to-day tasks of a graphic artist were wildly different from the tasks of a designer in 2025. For one, the internet was just an idea being played with at DARPA. The job of designer to effectively communicate using hierarchy, composition, contrast, movement, proportion, and balance is the same today as it was 50 years ago. What’s different are the tasks. And that idea, that jobs are more than tasks, makes all the difference. AI depends on smart data and input to create good work. And the best way I’ve found to make sure AI has good information is find, create, and curate it myself.
Here’s how I use AI at the moment. I think of AI as a junior designer, writer, or idea parter. If I’m going to use AI, I always do upfront work to collect information, gather background, find inspiration, and create my own ideas. I still do all the work I would normally do. But then, I may use AI to challenge my assumptions. To offer metaphors or reframe an idea I may not have thought of. To save time on word structure or the phrasing of the way I want to communicate an idea. But it still needs me to shape the final creative idea. To actually decide, “is this good or bad? Quality or crap?”
That’s the human element. The strategy, judgement, and craft. Even if I use AI, it never replaces what people pay for: strategic thinking and insight, taste and creative judgment, cultural sensitivity and context, and presentation and storytelling. These are still human domains. AI can help accelerate drafts, expand thinking, or offer surprising directions. But the final decision-making, refinement, and craft still come from me.
So, will AI replace designers, writers, and artists? Yes and no. Like all of this, it’s not black and white. Our tasks will (and already have) changed. But our jobs will still be our jobs.
Elephants.
I know. I can hear you. “But what about…?” Yep. I agree. There are a lot of problems with AI. Stealing intellectually property to train LLMs. Dubious sources of data. Privacy and sensitive information being put into the machine. Using AI to plagiarize someone else’s work or style (”ChatGPT, create a logo in the style of Saul Bass”). Not to mention the huge environmental concerns. I very concerned with all of these things. But I’m not a lawyer or an IT professional or an environmental specialist. I’m an artist. So, I speak of what I’m qualified to speak of. The rest is for another conversation.
Wisdom.
I’ve been experimenting with AI, particularly ChatGPT. I’ve found some interesting uses for it, from helping with brand strategy to teaching it to help me journal through tough events. And to be honest, at times I’m astonished. It does feel like cheating. But I’m critical of what it produces. I always edit it and make it my own. What it does is give me more time to think about the things I want to think about while it does a lot of the work for me on the things I don’t want to spend time on. I never want to use AI in my writing or art. But when it comes time to make a site outline based off a kickoff meeting (something I’ve done countless times), I may look to AI to help. For me, it’s the same as saying “you do this, junior designer. I’ll refine it when you’re done.”
Also, I’m having this conversation with people in and out of the creative fields. I’m getting lots of perspectives so I don’t fall into black and white thinking. And I’m resisting succumbing to the “ask ChatGPT” hole when I get stuck in my creative work. There are studies that show that the more someone uses AI, the more critical thinking and analytical skills are lost. That’s bad, and I don’t want that to happen to me.
Finally, I’m seeing what I do as moving from Knowledge work to Wisdom work. When AI has all the knowledge, perhaps what we need is a human with a bit of Wisdom. Of course, I could be totally wrong. We might all be screwed. I’ll ask ChatGPT about it.
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No AI was used in research, writing, or editing this piece.
