Normalizing the future: a creative guide to AI and change
Finding wisdom in technological transformation
Hello internet friends,
Yesterday has been an unexpectedly sunny day in Amsterdam and I took some time to refresh my thoughts and some old notes I had in my folders for ages.
Apparently, this is a longer post than usual, so I apologize for the stream of consciousness but the sun is awakening all thoughts have been sleeping in the cold winter (and in my hidden notes folders).
I hope this can serve as a small guide for those seeking to understand how AI relates to our daily creative practice. While there's often perceived conflict between creative professionals and AI tools, with designers feeling threatened by technological advancement, the key lies in our response to technological change.
Facing the unknown
When faced with the unknown, our minds tend to swing between extremes.
We either dream up utopian futures where technology solves all our problems, or we spiral into dystopian fears about machines replacing human creativity.
This pendulum between hope and fear is particularly evident in how we're responding to AI in the creative industry.
James Clear captures this psychological pattern beautifully in Atomic Habits when he writes:
New plans offer hope because we don't have any experience to ground our expectations... Youth is easily deceived because it is quick to hope. There is no experience to root the expectations in.
In the beginning, hope is all we have because we lack the experience to temper our expectations.
But what about when that hope transforms into fear? The old saying fear always springs from ignorance rings especially when we confront technological change.
As creative professionals, we often try to compensate for this uncertainty by attempting to predict and control the future. We research, we forecast, we try to "hack" what's coming next. Yet perhaps we're looking in the wrong direction.
To understand our future with AI, we need to look backward first. AI isn't an isolated phenomenon, it's part of humanity's long story of technological evolution.
Just as the printing press didn't eliminate writers but transformed how we share ideas, AI isn't here to replace creatives but to reshape how we create. Each innovation throughout history has opened up parallel possibilities, creating new tools that enable even better tools.
Context
Understanding this historical context helps us view AI as a natural progression rather than an alien disruption.
Yes, AI has increased the volume of content being produced, making it harder to stand out. But this challenge isn't new, we've faced similar transitions with desktop publishing, digital design tools, and template marketplaces. Each time, what separated exceptional work wasn't the tools used but the taste that guided their use.
This is where our role as creatives becomes crucial.
Taste
Taste, the ability to deeply connect with an audience through shared values and understanding, can't be automated. While AI can generate visuals endlessly, it takes human discernment to ensure each piece authentically aligns with a brand's core message and resonates with its audience.
Contextual intelligence
What we're looking at isn't simply artificial intelligence, but the emergence of contextual intelligence. These tools aren't just processing information, they're understanding and responding to context, transforming the way we use software to explore our creative reality more intelligently.
This evolution offers us an unprecedented opportunity to elevate our work, not by replacing human creativity, but by amplifying our capacity for deeper thinking.
When AI handles the execution aspects of our work, we gain the freedom to invest our energy in the strategic layers of creativity that truly matter.
Strategic importance
This transformation fundamentally changes how we should value our work as creatives. Instead of being paid primarily for our execution, the countless hours of pixel-pushing and technical adjustments, we can now be compensated for our minds: our strategic thinking, our refined taste, our ability to understand and shape context.
This is where our true value lies.
When you're no longer spending hours on routine tasks, you can dedicate that time to a deeper exploration of your craft:
Developing stronger strategic frameworks for your projects
Understanding the subtle nuances of your audience's needs
Refining your taste and judgment
Crafting more meaningful narratives and experiences
Curation process
The refinement process remains crucial. While anyone can input a prompt, it takes experienced judgment to curate results and determine what truly deserves to be published. This curation process draws on our accumulated understanding of audience, context, and brand values, aspects that require human insight and experience.
The key is recognizing that creativity remains deeply subjective and highly contextual.
No amount of artificial intelligence can replace the human ability to read between the lines, understand cultural nuances, or make those intuitive leaps that lead to truly innovative solutions.
What these tools can do is amplify our capacity to engage with these deeper aspects of our work.
As we move forward, the most successful creatives won't be those who can generate the most content or execute the fastest, they'll be those who can think most deeply about their craft, who can speculate about complex contexts with wisdom, and who can use these new tools to amplify rather than replace their human insight.
The future doesn't belong to the ones who know the most, but to those who learn the fastest. - Kevin Kelly
I’m pretty faithful and confident that in this new landscape, you're not being paid to click buttons or push pixels. You're being paid to think, to understand, to contextualize, and to guide.
It's not about predicting the future perfectly but about maintaining enough flexibility to adapt while holding onto the core principles that make our work meaningful.
Ouch! is a weekly newsletter about creative empowerment and personal development proudly owned by Amsterdam-based art director and creative strategist Lucia Bertazzo.
Feel free to drop Lucia a DM on Instagram with any suggestion regarding art, design, or something that triggered your mind and deserves attention, or leave a comment here.
Want to chat? Email her at lbertazzo95@gmail.com
Stay hydrated, see you soon 🦖
Big agree on the cautious optimism, and I think we need to lean into the dystopian vibes, as strange as that sounds. There's a reason why the heroes in cyberpunk stories are often tech-savvy hackers.
Ah, such a great piece, Lucia! Totally agree with everything you said. As creatives, it’s easy to feel a bit uneasy about AI, but maybe it’s time to take a deep breath and look at the upside. What if it actually gives us more space to focus on the best and coolest part of our work - the deep, meaningful creative thinking?