Setting: A quiet, minimalist studio. THE STRATEGIST sits across from THE ARTIST, who has a portfolio of stunning digital paintings and designs spread across a large table.
The Artist: I’ll be honest. I look at these tools—Midjourney, DALL-E—and I feel a sense of dread. I’ve spent two decades honing my craft. My understanding of color theory, of composition, of the subtle weight of a line... it feels like it’s all about to be commoditized. Anyone can now type a sentence and generate an image that, at first glance, is beautiful. What is left for me?
The Strategist: I understand the feeling. It’s a genuine and valid concern. Let me ask you this: when you look at one of your own pieces, for example this one... [points to a complex, emotionally resonant image]... what was the very first thing you did?
The Artist: The first thing? I suppose... the idea. The feeling I wanted to evoke. A sense of quiet melancholy after a storm. I had an image in my head of the specific quality of light when the sun breaks through dark clouds.
The Strategist: And if you had described that feeling, that specific quality of light, to an apprentice painter, what would they have done?
The Artist: They would have tried to replicate my words. They’d mix the colors, sketch the composition... but they would have missed the nuance. They don’t have my memories, my specific emotional connection to that image. Their version would be technically proficient, perhaps, but hollow.
The Strategist: Is the AI not, in this sense, the ultimate apprentice? You give it a prompt—your words, your idea—and it executes the craft of painting with incredible speed. It can mix the colors and sketch the composition a thousand different ways in a minute. But can it have your memories? Can it feel that specific, quiet melancholy?
The Artist: No. Of course not. But the final image can look so convincing that the viewer doesn’t care. They just see a beautiful picture.
The Strategist: Perhaps. But let’s stay with the creation process. After the initial idea, what comes next? You have a hundred possible compositions, a thousand possible color palettes. How do you choose?
The Artist: That’s... the work. It’s taste. It’s intuition. I might try a dozen layouts before I find the one that has the right energy. I adjust a color by a single degree to get the harmony just right. I spend hours on the expression in a character’s eyes. That’s the part that takes forever. That’s the art.
The Strategist: And has the AI automated that part? Has it automated your taste?
The Artist: ...No. It has only automated the generation of the initial options. I still have to be the one to direct it, to curate, to choose from the hundreds of images it produces. I am the one who says, "No, not that one... that one. That one has the feeling."
The Strategist: So, the AI has taken over a portion of the craft—the technical execution of laying down pixels. But it has left the art—the vision, the taste, the curation, the storytelling—entirely in your hands. What if the AI isn’t a threat to your value, but a lever that amplifies it?
The Artist: What do you mean, a lever?
The Strategist: A master painter of the 17th century had to spend years learning to mix their own pigments from raw materials. It was a highly technical craft. When pre-packaged tubes of paint were invented, did that destroy art? Or did it free the artist from the craft of pigment-mixing to allow them to focus more of their energy on composition and expression?
The Artist: It freed them, obviously.
The Strategist: This is the same shift, but at a much higher velocity. The AI is your pre-packaged tube of paint. It frees you from the craft of rendering, allowing you to focus entirely on the higher-order work of vision and meaning. The value is no longer in your ability to render a perfect shadow—the AI can do that. The value is in your decision of where the shadow should fall, and why.
The Artist: So you’re saying my job is becoming... a director? A curator?
The Strategist: Is that not what a great artist has always been? You are the director of ideas, emotions, and aesthetics. The AI is now your infinitely skilled, infinitely fast studio assistant. The danger is not that the AI will replace you. The danger is in competing with the AI on the level of craft. The opportunity is to ascend to the level of vision.
The Artist: I see. So the person who wins is not the one who can prompt the best, but the one who has the best taste? The one who knows what to ask for?
The Strategist: Precisely. The future of creativity is not in the answer, but in the question. The AI can generate infinite answers. Only you can ask the right question and recognize the right answer. That is the art that can never be automated. That is the work that remains.