If a machine can replace your creativity in a few short prompts, then you need to ask yourself: was I ever really that creative to begin with?
I keep seeing LinkedIn posts warning that the AI apocalypse is coming for your job! The irony? Half of those posts are written by AI.
Cards on the table, I do think that AI is going to change everything. How can it not? But the fear that it will steal your job, as a creative… that says more about you than it does the AI. What I see daily on social media isn’t automation, it’s apathy. You’ve already given up.
We’re not being replaced, we’re choosing to be.
Instead of refining ideas, building stories, pushing our concepts and plans further, we ask AI to do it for us. “Write me a post about how AI isn’t going to take your job”. That’s not creative, that’s a prompt. And when your “creativity” becomes indistinguishable from the machine’s, you’ve already lost.
Creativity still takes work! It’s supposed to. AI should be used to amplify your work, your process and your clarity, but it isn’t a replacement for your voice, taste, or vision. Be your true self. That’s what makes your content shine, and it’s what makes this world beautiful.
I use AI and Machine Learning tools daily in my sound design and mixes. Tools like iZotope RX or Supertone Clear are massively powerful for cleaning unwanted noises from my dialogue, but if they’re overused, without nuance or care, they leave the dialogue feeling lifeless, synthetic, full of watery sounding artifacts, and just plain wrong.
Here’s the take away: Real creatives will use these tools to become more creative. Lazy creatives will use them to replace the work and themselves.
If you want to thrive, not just survive, in this age of AI, learn all the tools you can. Master them! Use them like you would use an EQ, Delay, Compressor, or Reverb, with a delicate touch and an attentive ear.
Imagine you’re the captain on a small sailboat. The sail is your creativity and the boat itself is our work. Your job is to get that boat from point A to point B. The sail does a great job of getting us there, but here comes a giant storm, Hurricane AI! If you forget your training and give up, the boat will surely sink. But, if you commit to tightening your sail, and catching the wind of this powerful storm, you will get to your destination much, much faster. That’s the world we’re in now.
Anyway, AI will not replace you! But if you’ve already stopped thinking for yourself, you’ve made its job pretty dang easy.
Photo by Prithvi Shetty on Unsplash
