Bridging Worlds: An Honest Take on AI vs. the Creative
If you feel conflicted, this is for you.
I’m a creative. I write books, I make music. The list goes on. I also happen to be doing a PhD rooted in AI at my university’s School of Engineering and Computer Science. So I stand — quite uncomfortably — on the bridge between two worlds that many people think are at war: art and technology.
And I get asked, constantly, “What’s your take on AI? Isn’t it destroying creativity? Isn’t it wrong?”
I’ve avoided answering for a long time. Maybe because I didn’t want to take a side. Maybe because it’s easier to sit quietly than to wade into a conversation that’s full of fear, anger, and misunderstandings on both sides.
But I think I have a responsibility now to speak, because I can’t run from the fact that I am standing on this bridge. And I know there are a lot of creatives out there feeling lost, angry, scared, or just deeply conflicted. If you’re one of them, this is for you.
The Truth About AI: What It Is — and Isn’t
Let’s start by demystifying AI.
Artificial Intelligence isn’t new. It’s been around since at least the 1950s. The term itself was coined in 1956 at a conference at Dartmouth College. The conference proposed that “every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it,” marking the formal birth of AI as a field of study. Since then, AI has quietly found its way into our lives in more ways than most people realize.
- Spam filters on your email? AI.
- Google Maps suggesting a faster route? AI.
- Autocorrect fixing your typos? AI.
- Netflix recommending your next show? AI.
- Instagram’s algorithm deciding what you see? AI.
- Photoshop’s “Content Aware Fill”? That’s AI too.
For decades, AI has been working in the background, augmenting and automating tasks, often without us noticing. We welcomed it because it made things faster, more convenient, or just less tedious.
But the AI most people are panicking about today is Generative AI — AI that can ‘create’ things [and before y’all come for me for using the word “create,” please note the single quotes]. Images. Music. Videos. Text. And that’s what feels different.
But How Different Is Generative AI, Really?
Generative AI has been in development for years. The earliest neural networks that could generate basic images and sounds go back to the early 2010s (although earlier generative models existed in the 1980s and 1990s). Tools like GANs (Generative Adversarial Networks), which enabled more realistic image generation by pitting two neural networks against each other, first appeared in 2014. AI-generated art has been around in experimental forms for over a decade.
But most people didn’t notice. Generative AI was niche, experimental, and inaccessible to anyone without a computer science background and serious technical skills.
Then came MidJourney, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and DALL-E — user-friendly platforms that put powerful generative tools into the hands of anyone with an internet connection. That’s why this wave exploded.
In 2022, ChatGPT hit 1 million users in five days. Suddenly, AI wasn’t just something researchers and tech companies talked about. It was personal. It could write essays, generate songs, create digital paintings. And it became clear: this wasn’t just a tool — it could replace some of the work people had spent years mastering.
And that’s scary. Especially for creatives.
The Hypocrisy We Need to Acknowledge
Here’s the uncomfortable part of the conversation, and I say this as a creative myself: there’s a bit of hypocrisy we need to face.
Creatives have often embraced new technologies when they benefitted us — even when they came at the cost of someone else’s livelihood.
- The printing press displaced scribes who hand-copied manuscripts.
- Photography disrupted portrait painting.
- Recorded music reduced the demand for live musicians in bars and restaurants.
- Digital cameras nearly wiped out film photography and put thousands of photo lab workers out of work.
- Photoshop and digital tablets gave rise to digital artists who took work that used to go to traditional fine artists and illustrators.
And when the time passed and each integration became the new normal, we didn’t continue to protest those changes — not really. Because those innovative tools gave us wings to work faster and cheaper and to often become more marketable.
Today, we mindlessly switch on the radios in our cars or pull up our favourite Spotify and Apple Music playlists. We hardly spare a thought for the 1930s and 1940s musicians who protested the rise of recorded music when the fear of job loss was real and inevitable. Recorded music gave our lives instantly accessible soundtracks to feel our feelings and dance or cry our days away. We could carry music with us anywhere, with our walkmans and CD players and iPods and smartphones. Road trips with our favourite radio stations. Lives flooded with a bit more meaning.
Yet today, some creatives argue that AI is different. Now, there are valid concerns about the ethics around the way these models were trained (copyrighted works without consent). This deserves attention. But this article isn’t about addressing the legalities of data training or intellectual property (maybe in another). I would never minimise that ongoing battle for better.
My scope here is meant to address something else, something deeper and timeless. It’s about how we, as creatives, respond to a tidal wave of change.
You Can’t Stop the Tidal Wave. But You Can Learn to Surf.
AI is here. And it’s not going away. Whether we like it or not, it’s going to reshape the creative industries — just as every major technology before it has done. And here’s the hard truth: technology doesn’t ask for permission. It doesn’t slow down to spare the people it leaves behind.
I often wonder how the candlemakers felt about the lightbulb. We flip on our lights without a second thought for those artisans who once poured their skill into that craft. And yet, there are ranges of scented candles today that are incredibly popular (and sometimes quite expensive). The candlemakers returned, with dried flowers and affirmation melts and pure creative spark.
There’s a famous satirical essay, The Candle Makers’ Petition (1845), by French economist Frédéric Bastiat. In it, the candlemakers and related industries (tallow producers, oil lamp makers, wick manufacturers) petitioned the French government for protection. But not from foreign competitors — from the sun itself.
Their argument? The sun provided free light, undermining the entire candle industry. If the government could block out the sun (by ordering people to keep their windows shuttered), then demand for candles, lamps, and other artificial light sources would skyrocket. This, they claimed, would boost employment and prosperity in their industry.
Bastiat was using the absurdity of this argument to mock the logic of industries demanding protection from competition. He wanted to highlight how protectionist policies often only serve the narrow interests of specific industries at the expense of the greater public good. Blocking progress (in this case, free sunlight) benefits a few but harms everyone else.
I should note that while often cited in discussions of technological change, this was a fictional piece meant to critique protectionism. Still, the analogy feels viscerally and uncomfortably relevant. I released my first book in 2018 after two gruelling years of learning how to write and publish fantasy. Twelve months later, I had written and released the final two books of the trilogy (and two more books since then). Then, last year, I saw an ad. It was a woman boasting about the money you could make by publishing tons of books on Amazon without having to write a single word.
I felt the anger. And the tinge of fear. I had sacrificed so much to try to put out something of quality in the mega ocean of titles, and the market was about to be flooded with works from people who didn’t even care. They would be planting seeds—no, weeds—while “real authors” struggled to make their book crops grow. I’m not a fan of nonchalant seeds. The world is already saturated with noise, and we writers have a responsibility to add something deeper, something with soul.
But what of the ones with pure seeds and purer intentions? Incredible stories that could change the world. What if the world needs these stories sooner rather than later? And what if AI can teach them and help them to tell it? There’s always been an ache in me to ensure knowledge is easily accessible and that understanding isn’t the trade of the elite. I began to wonder if I had glorified the suffering of learning the craft so much that I felt an inherent and subconscious disdain for anyone who skipped the line. But the truth is, when I went deep enough, I felt the opposite. I want anyone who comes after me as a writer and publisher to have a much easier time birthing their stories than I did. I even made my self-publishing course free for that very reason.
Yet, what about the tangible losses many will experience? In writing this article, I asked ChatGPT to show me where my tone was harsher than intended so I (hopefully) wouldn’t come across like a dick. Because creatives are sensitive beings. I should know. And many are already closed off with walls so high that this article’s effort is meaningless. I couldn’t risk coming across as insensitive on top of that. My chances of receiving openness were already so low.
Still, no matter my reason for using GPT, my use implies that I took work away from an editor. The editor who would have probably put a red mark through the word “dick” with an emphatic “No.” And while I would have still chosen to keep it in as a raw and honest account of exactly what I thought and felt, they would have gotten paid. Somehow, my choice to indulge GPT as an editor implies I’ve chosen a side. Maybe even allowed myself to be deemed “anti-creative.” Except I can’t be anti-creative without being anti-myself. And should I ever be anti-me, I would cease to exist.
It’s tough. And the justifications are easy to spit out. I could argue that being a creative plus a PhD candidate doesn’t afford me an editor every time my word vomit impulse is triggered. But that’s not the trajectory I have mapped for myself. And the harsher truth is, the speed, cost, and instant availability of AI to make sure my musings get a speedy ‘second look’ is exciting for me as an impulse writer. Fewer negotiations on Upwork or Fiverr means more time, money, and space for living and being—the rare unicorns of the path I’ve chosen.
I also want the freedom to be. To make choices that tether lines and challenge the blacks and whites we insist on pouring over a very colourful world. I want to understand ALL the dimensions that make life nuanced and complex. I want to sit deeply on each side and see what they don’t see about the other. I want to understand what lies beyond the obvious motivations—our unspoken, unconscious human needs grasping for recognition. I want to enjoy how enabled technology makes me feel to be even more creative. But I also don’t want to see my fellow creatives in pain…
And I don’t want to disingenuously fight for a principle that, under other circumstances of technological disruption, vacates its protested place.
I don’t think many of us have reconciled this. I don’t think we’ve reconciled the ways in which we participate in the very things we claim to stand against. Our principles get murky when there are degrees of separation between us and technology’s next victims. And the former ones? We hardly even remember where they landed.
Progress moves on. Creativity and technology have always been great disruptors. Sometimes they destroy. Sometimes they create. Often they do both at the same time. And I am the whirlwind of their making.
But I digress.
The Danger of Running From the Table
Too many creatives are so angry or afraid that they’ve refused to engage with AI at all. They’ve left the table. They’ve decided they want no part of it.
But if we walk away from the conversation, we lose any say in how these tools are developed, regulated, and used. If we don’t grab a seat in this game of musical chairs, we’ll find ourselves standing outside the room, shouting at a door that’s already closed.
I’m not saying you have to love AI. I’m not saying you have to use it.
But you do need to understand it.
Because if you’ve already decided AI is “all bad,” you’ve given up your objectivity. And when you lose objectivity, fear and insecurity take over. And while fear is valid — and insecurity is deeply human — neither is a strategy for survival.
So What Can Creatives Do?
Learn the Tools
You don’t have to use AI in your work. But you do need to understand how it works. Know its strengths and weaknesses. Know what it can and can’t do. That knowledge gives you power.
Ask Better Questions
Instead of asking, “How do we stop AI?” ask:
- How can we use AI in ways that align with our values?
- How do we protect and compensate artists fairly?
- How do we educate audiences about the value of human creativity?
Fight the Right Fights
Don’t waste time on blanket condemnations. Focus on issues that matter:
- Ethical data use
- Fair compensation
- Transparency and accountability
Be Part of Shaping the Future
Join the discussions. Get involved in policy. Work with developers. If we want a say in how AI evolves, we have to show up.
The Bridge Between Worlds
I’m not here to tell you what to think. But as someone standing on this bridge between creativity and AI, I can tell you this: you can’t afford to ignore what’s coming.
AI is not the enemy. Fear isn’t the enemy either.
But pretending we can stop change — that’s dangerous.
We need creatives at the table. We need your insight. Your questions. Your ethics. Your values. AI isn’t just a tech problem. It’s a human problem. It’s a creative problem. And creatives are some of the best problem-solvers I know.
So take a seat. We need you here. And know that this isn’t about choosing between creativity and AI.
It’s about understanding that the future will be shaped by those who show up.
