For 40 years - I was the creator for content - many many hours to late nights after work making - writing - creating…
Now AI is doing things so much faster - and at a better quality than I could…
I feel more like an editor than a creator now…
Yes it is my taste, and my direction - but not creating
The amount of AI has consumed every workflow… and made it easier - more efficient - and able to complete tasks that I thought were impossible - like programming my trumpet app in the App Store with Xcode.
But literally used to get headaches trying to understand Xcode a long time ago…
I guess in some ways - I miss the old ways…
But things have sped up… now it’s the prompt creation and the enter key…
Yes, I refuse to curse the darkness of the Ai taking over the world. Ai gives me a work partner that works for a lot less than a paid assistant would cost. It doesn’t get tired and it doesn’t take breaks.
At nearly 65, I am more productive in my writing than in my entire life. Simply because research task are so much quicker and my work partner finds things that I probably never would.
But don’t be mistaken, my work partner is often wrong and often needs to be corrected. It does not always word things right and it only has what it has read into its memory to work with unless you tell it to look for something else. It has limits and like I said often wrong because it works from a small dataset until you tell it to look for something in particular.
It has to be trained and it needs you to do it. You can have it create rules for it to operate under, but it at times will forget to consult the rules when it does something and you will have to remind it.
It’s feels different - I still am - a one man operation…
But what I used to do for 40 years is somewhat gone…
Everything seems sped up - got an idea - create it now - immediate access - before had to pick and choose - or often times - worked on something for an evening - then in the morning - delete it because I followed the wrong creative path…
An assistant is nice really really nice - never had help before… had to do it all…
I used to make little games at scratch.edu to help teach kids basic programming…
Thinking about creating a little trumpet maze game for the app - when you need to rest your chops…
It can go from thinking about - to implementing - very fast with AI
Ai is not sophisticated enough to take over anything and it’s only as smart as it’s been programmed. If you want mediocre pick Ai. It could never put out the heart , soul and artistry of a well designed website. Also Ai is wrong on so many levels and gives wrong answers and forgets the entire conversation in mid sentence. Maybe it will get better over time but it’s missing the core components it needs to put out stellar work.
Mike I think you are correct about this. Ai if used correctly does not squelch creativity, it actually helps you to release it. The “heart, soul and artistry” still comes from the user. There is pretty much nothing that I have asked Ai to do that I didn’t have to go in and guide it, correct it, and tell it what I wanted and how I wanted it.
If you think about Ai is just a step above any software. If you use Elements without Ai, it is creating things that you are not because someone else already put the work into creating the framework and components. You’re just arranging them on the page. So the purist would argue you should do websites in html and CSS without using web design software.
I agree that your site is awesome! I’m not sure if I could entrust it to do the one I’m currently working. I do love the space theme you have going. Yours is one of the better ones I’ve seen. How long did it take to build? You might make me a believer.
It’s up to you to use AI - or not. Why not keep creating content yourself? Maybe stop comparing the things you do yourself with those done by AI and then drawing the conclusion that AI does a better job? You are not forced to use AI. I’m one of those older folks too, was not working in the creative business but in management jobs. I’m sure AI has invaded that discipline also. But luckily I’m also old enough not to be forced to use AI. I do what I like to do: writing my own texts, playing with Elements’ possibilities (and encountering problems too), but all without using AI. Maybe you should try that too?
It is a little of both now… making choices - directions to follow…
Yes when desired - go old school
Funny story - ran out of tokens- and had to manually move one section 24px across 30 pages… haven’t done that in awhile… took more clicking than I remember…
It’s interesting that I see biases in how people write about AI that they don’t extend to the way things have been done previously.
For instance, how did you learn to code, design, or write? At some point you probably studied the past and learned the patterns that were most efficient or considered correct. That’s essentially what AI: pattern recognition and re-use. Learning from or using what’s been done doesn’t mean that you can’t be creative on top of that.
Indeed, there was a popular viral piece years back called Everything is a Remix. The contention was that creative folk build upon what has been done. That was also Sontag’s primary thought in On Photography. AI allows you to remix and build upon.
The other bias I keep seeing is that “it’s okay to hire employees, but not AI.” I’ll use a mix of those two in anything I do, but the AI ones seem to be a little more predictable, reliable, and faster. This bias also seems to come a lot from designers who think that people will stop hiring them because of AI. Perhaps some will. But we’ve been down that road before. Laser printers and PageMaker were going to put newspapers and magazines out of business, for example.
One of the human traits that allowed us to become the dominant species is that we acquire knowledge, and we learn how and when to apply that knowledge. Nothing’s changed in that equation. AI gives me—with verification—more knowledge, but it’s me that’s directing the use of it. Which is where the creativity, experimentation, scientific method, and other things come into play (and move us forward).
- create it now - immediate access - before had to pick and choose - or often times - worked on something for an evening - then in the morning - delete it because I followed the wrong creative path…
really really nice 
- never had help before… had to do it all…
