Use AI to Do What You Already Do, Better

There is a lot of talk right now about authenticity. Authentic books, authentic art, authentic everything. The worry is that nothing counts as real anymore because AI might have touched it. And now people are upset about watermarks on top of it.

I get the concern. If you are an artist trying to earn a living, or a copywriter watching your rates fall, this is not an abstract debate. But I think we have seen this movie before, and it is worth remembering how it ended.

When the printing press showed up, there were surely people who said that if a book was not copied by hand, it was not real. When computers arrived and graphic design moved onto a screen, the same voices said that if it was not drawn by hand, it did not count. Every time a new tool shows up, the old way gets reframed as the only honest way. Then the tool becomes normal, and the argument fades.

AI is the next round of that argument. The part I push back on is the idea that we should not be creating with it at all. I think the opposite is true, especially if you are a creative person. Your job right now is to figure out how to use AI to do what you already do, only better.

Here is why. It is all about how you interface with the thing. How you couple it to your own skills. How you treat it as a very capable assistant that helps you do your work instead of a replacement for your work.

A writer using AI to write will produce much better work than a nonwriter using the same tool. A developer who learns how to properly orchestrate AI for development will ship far better output than a nondeveloper poking at a prompt. A guitar player will build a much better book or website about playing guitar than someone who has never picked one up. That is just how it works.

Computers have always been simple at the core. Input, output. Garbage in, garbage out. AI does not change that rule. It amplifies it. Put real knowledge and real taste in, and you get something good out. Put nothing in, and you get nothing worth reading.

So does handmade work still have a place? Of course it does. In fact, I think real art, real graphics, and real music will command a higher price over time, not a lower one. Look at how organic produce sells for more than regular produce in many parts of the world. People pay extra for the human touch when they can tell it is there. That market does not go away. It gets more valuable.

The bottom line is that AI is not going anywhere. The question is not whether you should use it. The question is whether you are going to use it to get better at your own craft or let someone else do that while you sit it out.

One more thing. This article is all AI. I created it by speaking into an LLM and asking it to turn what I said into an article. What you are reading is the result.

Is it any less valuable than if I had sat down and typed it out myself? I am not a writer. Given my writing skills, I would say this is a better article than the one I would have produced on my own. The ideas are mine. The structure and the polish came from the tool. That feels like a fair trade.

So does it matter whether a nonwriter wrote this? I do not think so. What matters is whether you got something out of it. Whether the time you spent reading this was worth it. That is the whole test.

I hope you had fun reading it. If you are already using AI, keep going. If you are not, start. Use it to do what you do, better.