you’re right to be scared of AI… unless you’ve got taste and talent 😉
AI slop is real, but so is brilliance. Don’t let creative insecurity keep you from achieving the latter.
There’s a strange kind of moral panic happening in creative spaces right now (on my Substack notes feed, in particular lol) — and it’s all about AI.
Who’s using it, who’s admitting they’re using it, who’s proud to have never touched the stuff!
And whether you fall into the camp that thinks it’s fair to question the tech and where it fits in the creative process or you just straight up think it’s cheating — the message from many is clear.
If you use AI to write… well, maybe you’re not a *reaaal* writer (or artist or thinker or whatever).
*sigh*
How quickly we forget.
Now before this is mistaken for some pro-AI propaganda piece lol, let me be clear. I’m not suggesting every person hop on board the Chat GPT train if they have no need, nor am I here to insist absolutely that you’ll be left behind if you don’t immediately lock step with the futurists.
BUT — since the way we know the future is because we can look at the past, I’m looking back — and I can’t help but notice a pattern.
The Electric Guitar Was Once The Hot, New, Controversial Tech on the Block
I recently learned that the exact inventor of the electric guitar is unknown. Something that is known, however, is that many of those who played acoustic weren’t happy about its arrival. The prevailing argument seems to be that it ‘didn’t create a pure music sound,’ whatever that means.
Those that embraced it though? They ultimately fathered rock and fucking roll. And thank god for that.
Likewise, it’s alleged that the pianoforte was detested in 17th century France by those who played the harpsichord. And playing the harpsichord was child’s play to those who played the lute.
I’m sure if we could go back far enough, we’d find tales of choir boys clutching their robes the first time they dragged an organ into a cathedral lol.
It’s a tale truly as old time: many of the things we now worship as timeless were once disruptive, questioned, and deeply suspect.
What Taylor Swift Can Teach Us About Workflow and Catching the Spark at the Source
Bringing it back to the 20th century (I think lol, sorry can’t be bothered to google) — it’s the same old story for things like digital audio workstations, or DAWs.
The first time a song was created using software instead of live instruments, traditionalists were up in arms with claims like ‘That’s not real music,’ and ‘You didn’t even touch an instrument!
(I wasn’t there, but I’m willing to wager lol)
And yet today, some of the most emotionally resonant music in the world — the kind that cracks you open in your car at midnight — is made with clicks and loops and synth pads and automations that technically make the process easier and the product better.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s any less powerful or true.
Because the magic doesn’t come from the software, it comes from the source.
I can think of few better examples than one Miss Taylor Swift, heard of her lol?
Not only is she a booked-and-busy international pop superstar lol, but she’s also practically the SOLE artist behind her innumerable hits. How is this possible?
She’s talented and resourced to be sure, but — she’s also a master of workflow and using the tools at her disposal!
Taylor famously captures her sparks of inspiration by singing them into voice memos on her phone. It’s how she catches the soul of a song before it slips away.
She doesn’t wait until she’s alone in a studio with a notebook and her guitar. Rather, she uses the tools she has, when she has them, while she’s moving through her life.
And I believe that it’s because she works that way, that we get something like The Tortured Poets Department being born WHILE she’s in the middle of the biggest, most ground-breaking tour in modern history.
That’s not just talent — that’s tech-enabled prolificness!
Access Is Not the Same as Taste!!!!
Now, here’s the plot twist:
The tools she uses? They’re not exclusive.
Millions of people have iPhones. Millions of people have access to GarageBand or Logic or WHATEVER. And yet they’re not making 1989 or Reputation or All Too Well.
Because tools do not create vision, and access to them does not equal taste.
On BBLs, Aesthetics, and DISCERNMENT
Strange turn, I know, but let’s talk about BBLs lol.
Or lip injections or dyeing one’s hair or literally any kind of cosmetic enhancement. I’ll tread lightly, because this is NOT about shame, but there’s a parallel here that I want to explore!
When done well, when integrated skillfully, these kinds of procedures can look seamless, completely natural even! Right? And that usually is the goal — a result that is harmonious, undetectable, and elevates what’s already there.
But we’ve all seen the other kind. The ones where something is just… off. When that happens, the enhancement becomes the whole story and it’s impossible to miss. That’s not about augmentation, not really. That’s about taste and discernment.
And that’s the thing with AI too!
Used well, it can bring clarity, structure, and flow to something that might otherwise stay trapped in your head. It can close that gap between insight and expression, almost at the speed of magic. Help you find a clickier headline for an idea that otherwise not get the shine it deserves.
But used by a writer with no vision or real voice? The results are usually formulaic, forgettable, and obvious.
Let’s Lighten Up on the Content Landfill Vibes
Now that we have platforms like Substack removing all gatekeepers to publishing, there will be those who won’t be able to resist flooding the internet with completely AI-generated (and therefore lifeless) slop.
And sure, it kinda sucks for the rest of us.
Or does it?
I believe that what will still cut through is the real! The work with resonance! Chat GPT might speed up a writer’s workflow, but a polished turd is still just a turd.
Why AI Isn’t the Threat — It’s the Mirror
I think the people who are most afraid of AI aren’t actually afraid of the tool itself.
They’re afraid of what it might reveal.
Because when the friction is gone, when you no longer have to even be sitting in front of your laptop to write or put in the time to correct your typos, the only thing still getting in between the world and your words is you.
You either have something to say or you don’t.
You either have courage or you don’t.
And you either know how to tell the truth… or you’re still performing.
The ADHD Reason I Use ChatGPT (And Why You Might Wanna)
This is now the SECOND newsletter I’ve sent out that has utilized ChatGPT to help me get it across the finish line.
And going forward, I can’t imagine how I’ll ever do this (with any consistency, at least!) without it ... And I’m not ashamed of that.
You’ve probably gathered by now that I have ADHD lol.
If you have it, you understand that the problem isn’t that I haven’t got ideas lol. The problem is that I’m SWIMMING in ‘em — nay, DROWNING lol.
I’ve often said that ideas are like little kernels of popcorn popping off in your brain constantly and trying to catch one before it hits the floor is damn near impossible.
And (like you I’m sure), my best ideas don’t wait for me to be at my desk. They come while I’m driving to the grocery store, while I’m walking the dogs, while I’m taking a shower, and while I’m sitting on the toilet lol.
So I grab my ever-present iPhone, I hit record and I let the idea pour out of me like an exorcism. It always feels good to capture ideas while they’re still hot, but TOO MANY TIMES, the lives of those ideas end there!!
Maybe it’s that I lack patience to edit (quite possible lol), or maybe it’s that doubt always creeps in quicker than I can get to my chair, but regardless… it’s rare that even an ALMOST FULLY FLESHED OUT idea doesn’t die an early death and end up in the purgatory that is my “Content Ideas” Notion database lol.
But having just truly found ChatGPT this week, and getting to copy and paste the transcript of my words and ideas into it and letting it shape those words and phrases into something legible at magic speed!? My god, it’s changed everything!
Now these ideas finally get to exist somewhere in the world that’s not that Notion database, or worse, as a 1-of-57 open tab in my brain! Which means they actually get to help or comfort or entertain or WHATEVER other people. If the rEaL wRiTeRs on Substack wanna judge me for that, so be it.
The truth remains that AI isn’t feeding me the ideas. It’s not where the lightning strikes. It might be an incredible synthesizer of information but it’s not the one who found the common thread between the harpsichord, lip injections and The Eras Tour lol.
That was me:)
AI just made sure I didn’t lose this idea to the ether yet again because my hands were busy loading my washing machine.
Not Everyone Needs AI — But For Some of Us, it’s an answered prayer
This is ultimately what I think a lot of people miss:
AI won’t make you an artist. But it might help you finally become a finisher.
And for people like us, the hyperspeed thinkers who can’t stop our brains from going too fast for our own good, that can change everything.
So use the tool if you want to.
Not to mimic someone else. Not because your well has run dry. And not because you think you need to feed the content machine and anything will do. It won’t.
But to finally catch your own lightning!! And turn that spark into new life instead of just another thread your brain follows to nowhere…
<3 D