The Human Touch

Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant vision of the future — it’s here, woven quietly but firmly into the fabric of daily life. It’s in the way our phones complete our sentences, how streaming platforms predict our next binge, and how navigation apps weave us through traffic. For some, it’s a marvel; for others, a creeping inevitability.

And for those of us in creative fields, it raises a prickly question: is AI coming for our craft?

AI Replaces Jobs

The honest answer? Sometimes.

AI has replaced certain roles across industries, automating tasks that once required human hands and human thought. But for writers, artists, and creators, the story isn’t so simple. AI doesn’t have to be an adversary — in the right hands, it can be a surprisingly useful ally.

As a writer, I’ve learned to see AI as part of my toolkit, not a threat to it. The blank page can be an intimidating thing; an AI tool can offer a nudge, spark an idea, point you toward research you might have missed.

I’ve personally gravitated toward Perplexity.ai, a free (with optional paid) research tool that feels less like a faceless machine and more like a quick-thinking assistant. It’s nimble, conversational, and helps me explore the edges of an idea without dictating the direction of my writing.

The Debate Rages On.

Of course, the debate rages on.

Advocates praise AI for speed, accessibility, and breaking creative blocks. Critics — myself included, at times — point out that while AI can mimic form, it struggles with depth. Machine-written prose rarely captures the intangible heartbeat of human writing: the rhythm shaped by lived experiences, the texture of personal memory, the emotional resonance only a human voice can fully carve.

For straightforward tasks, though, AI often fits the bill. Drafting a product blurb? Summarising a news piece? Generating a quick thank-you email? AI can do that in seconds. But here’s the catch: AI content can be flagged as machine-generated, or worse, tagged with possible plagiarism issues. In many cases, you end up rewriting so extensively that you wonder if it would have been faster to start from scratch.

AI Art Dilemma

In visual arts, the story takes another turn.

AI image generation has leapt forward at astonishing speed, producing jaw-dropping visuals in seconds. Some illustrators feel sidelined by this shift, while others have embraced AI as a collaborator — a source of sparks that they shape into something uniquely their own. The most interesting work frequently comes from this middle ground, where a human eye refines a machine’s chaos into personal vision.

If you doubt how far AI really reaches, take a scroll through There’s An AI For That. The sheer volume of hyper-specific tools — from AI voice coaches to virtual recipe creators — is as fascinating as it is overwhelming.

AI Marches On

And that might be the crux of it: this technology isn’t slowing down.

For creatives, the choice isn’t whether to engage with it, but how. We can resist it entirely, hoping it passes us by — or we can adapt, folding it into our process without letting it strip away what makes our work ours.

In a way, AI is like any other creative tool we’ve ever had: a blank canvas, a new brush, a sharper pen. It can’t dream for you, but it can hand you the materials to bring your dreams to life.

The trick is knowing where human imagination ends — and where you’re willing to let the machine begin.