Or: How to avoid becoming a digital assembly line worker in your own creative practice
Last week, a friend from a design agency asked me if they still needed to hire a designer now that they had Loveable. “Can’t it just make our websites and apps for us?” they wondered aloud, eyes gleaming with the prospect of cutting costs and timelines. I smiled and said, “Sure, the same way a microwave can make you a five-star meal.”
Here’s the thing everyone’s missing about Ai and creativity: It’s not the great equalizer people think it is. If anything, it’s becoming the ultimate amplifier of what you already bring to the table. Smart creatives are using Ai to become creative superhumans. Everyone else? They’re just making mediocre work faster.
The Fast Crap Phenomenon aka “Ai Slop”
We’re witnessing something fascinating (and a little terrifying) in the creative world. Ai has given everyone access to what looks like professional-grade tools. But here’s what I’ve noticed: people who couldn’t tell good design from bad design before Ai? They’re still making bad design—they’re just making a lot more of it, really quickly.
It’s like giving someone who burns toast a faster toaster. You’re not solving the real problem.
I recently saw a small business owner proudly show off their “Ai-designed” logo. It was technically competent—clean lines, readable text, proper proportions. But it looked exactly like 50,000 other Ai-generated logos: safe, generic, forgettable. It had all the visual appeal of elevator music.
The business owner was thrilled because it took five minutes instead of five days. But here’s what they missed: their competitor down the street hired a smart creative who used Ai as a research tool, generated dozens of concept directions in minutes, then applied human judgment to craft something that actually connected with their audience. Guess whose brand people remember?
What Smart Creatives Actually Do Differently
They Ask Better Questions
When I use Ai for design exploration, I’m not asking “make me a logo.” I’m asking “show me how luxury brands use negative space” or “what if we approached this like a 1920s travel poster but with modern typography?” Smart creatives know that Ai is only as good as the problems you give it to solve.
They Recognize Quality
This might be the most crucial skill in the Ai age. Anyone can generate 100 design variations in an hour now. But can you spot the one that actually works? Can you see why option #23 connects emotionally while option #47 feels cold? That’s not something Ai can teach you—it comes from years of studying what makes design tick.
They Understand Context
Ai doesn’t know that your client’s biggest competitor just rebranded with bold, angular fonts, so maybe we should go in a completely different direction. It doesn’t know that your target audience associates certain colors with trust or rebellion or luxury. Smart creatives bring this contextual intelligence to every Ai interaction.
The Creative Multiplier Effect
Here’s where it gets exciting. When you combine creative intelligence with Ai capabilities, you don’t just get better work—you get exponentially more creative possibilities.
Last month, I was working on a fantasy book cover. Instead of spending hours sketching rough concepts, I used Ai to generate 50 different compositions in 20 minutes. But then—and this is crucial—I applied my understanding of genre conventions, reader psychology, and visual storytelling to identify the three concepts worth developing. Ai gave me the raw material; creative judgment turned it into art.
The result? A cover that would have taken me two weeks to conceptualize and execute now took three days, but it was better than anything I could have created without the Ai assist. The client loved it, readers responded to it, and I learned new techniques I could apply to future projects.
The Human-Ai Creative Stack
Think of creative work as a stack, like building a house:
Foundation: Creative Intuition and Taste This is your ability to recognize what works and why. No Ai can install this for you—it develops through exposure, practice, and honest self-critique.
Second Floor: Technical Skills and Craft Knowledge Understanding typography, color theory, composition, user experience—the grammar of your creative language.
Third Floor: Ai as Your Creative Assistant This is where Ai lives—helping you execute ideas faster, explore more possibilities, handle technical grunt work.
Roof: Strategic Creative Thinking The ability to solve the right problem, not just any problem. Understanding what your work needs to accomplish in the real world.
Most people are trying to build their creative house starting with the third floor. It doesn’t work that way.
The Coming Creative Divide
We’re about to see the creative world split into two camps. On one side: people who think Ai is a creativity vending machine—put in a prompt, get out finished work. These folks will compete on speed and price, racing to the bottom of the market.
On the other side: smart creatives who use Ai as a sophisticated collaborator, amplifying their vision and accelerating their craft. They’ll compete on insight, originality, and results.
Guess which group will still have clients (and creative fulfillment) in five years?
The Smart Move Forward
If you’re a creative professional, here’s my advice: Fall in love with Ai, but don’t let it replace your brain. Use it to explore more ideas, execute faster, and push past technical limitations. But invest just as much time developing your taste, your strategic thinking, and your understanding of what makes creative work actually work.
Because at the end of the day, Ai might be able to generate a thousand logos, but it can’t tell you which one will make people stop scrolling and actually care about your client’s business.
And that? That’s still a human superpower.
The future belongs to creatives who are Ai-fluent AND creatively intelligent. Don’t just be fast—be smart about being fast.