Illustration by Patricia Z.
On AI, making, and the quietly terrifying possibility that the golden age of creativity is already here — for those who have something to bring to it.
This essay is about who is doing the thinking. About what gets lost when craft gets optimised out of the equation. About consciousness, overhead, beehives, Hermès, hypernormalization, a boiling frog, and a client who decided there was no need to pay artists for original artwork anymore.
It is not a technical analysis. It is not a hot take. It is a thought experiment by someone who uses AI every day, loves what it does for her work, and still draws by hand because something alive happens in the process that no tool can replicate.
Also: the Chemical Brothers. A handwritten letter. And a Birkin bag.