But Here’s The Part Nobody’s Talking About —
[ChatGPT, what should this section be called?]
It has been nice - peaceful even - staying out of the AI conversations. But with 20+ years as a creative, and decades reviewing the question “what makes great creative work”, it’s hard to see all the chatter and remain silent. I come from and live in a creative space, but I serve corporate individuals and comapnie, so I see the creatives and the way our work is changing, but I also see the companies and individuals who consume the outputs and use the tools.
So, despite my recent quest to listen more and speak less, in way I feel I owe my perspective — for creators and for those who are reevaluating the value of creation.
In the last two years, we have seen AI emerge as a tool for nearly everything. I've heard perspectives from clients in law, finance, and consulting, and personally I’ve explored it as a tool for research, graphic ideation, app development, music production, triathlon training, and even this article. No matter which way I look, AI seems to be the one for the job.
But here's the part nobody is talking about (get it?)
Along with this increasing adoption of AI is more and more abstaining, irritation, and even mockery of it. In each of my experiences, there are inevitable pitfalls, and even alarming responses and recommendations. To paraphrase a client conversation - if you want a good laugh, watch ChatGPT try to interpret a personal injury case.
At the same time, there seems to be a growing appreciation and longing for what is henceforth known as “the old fashioned way” - a.k.a. done by human.
Could the world be taking a collective step back and saying woah, this party kinda sucks?
The Nature of Artificial Intelligence
Let’s be honest. There is no denying AI’s capabilities, but there is also no denying how stupid it can be.
And the more you use it, the more you will understand the phenomenon: impressive insights with inexplicable misunderstandings, inability to recall conversations, follow instructions, distinguish memories, poor judgement, and absolutely zero taste.
Taste, by the way is often the difference between one-of-a-kind and generic, “good enough” and groundbreaking. And that small nuance is disproportionately large in a creative space. After all, branding, advertising, and marketing are all about creatively finding a way to be different, and remembered. But as for AI, it’s brainpower is still just brainpower. What would it take for AI to read a room?
Without taste or judgement, creativity is still ultimately in the hands of the prompter. And it appears many people either aren’t using it enough, or consuming it enough, because they would clearly see how so much of what they are “creating” is strikingly familiar to everybody else’s creations.
To summarize a very technical thing, AI works by finding patterns across countless examples, so it can quickly producing something. So yes, quite capable, just don’t expect it to start a trend.
This the “nature” of AI, at its core, even as it improves through larger models, better training, and entirely new approaches, the question is: will it ever truly understand the intangibilities that humans can.
In a practical sense, what happens when previously distinct voices all end up feeding the same machine, on a personal and professional level.
If AI causes everything to look, read, and sound as if it were written by one thing, it defeats the very purpose of why we share.
Branding Through AI
Branding is the art of distinction. Yet there has been a tidal wave of content pushed out which clearly came from a ChatGPT prompting. Whether scrolling LinkedIn or watching YouTube, people are starting to yawn at the predictable cadence and overused idioms.
It’s rather eerie, honestly, to read a caption from a law firm that reads just like a caption from a triathlon channel, and a dog shelter channel.
The unfortunate thing is I’m sure (I hope) this media started as original ideas, but through an AI filter, and a misconception that it is invisible, these original thoughts lose credibility for those who are starting to be able to spot AI in the wild. And for those who can’t, it still loses impact because it’s been diluted.
Thinking about all the “replaceable copywriters”, I am curious to see how that plays out as companies, content creators, artists, and so forth copy & paste their way onto more and more social captions, YouTube dialogues, email blasts, and beyond.
From where I’m sitting, they are [quietly?] becoming less like themselves and more like the competitors who also hand the reins over to AI.*
The Sleepy Astronomer
In July-Aug 2025, I was heavily invested in 3I/Atlas, a mysterious comet-like object passing through our solar system. I tuned into YouTube almost every night for updates. Over time, it became irritating listening to an AI script, with each episode using the same cadence.
Throughout the videos, time and again you’d hear a dramatic “but here's the part nobody's talking about...”
But the real issue emerged as I started to notice that same cadences everywhere else - other youtube videos, social media channels from all industries, emails, everywhere.
No Originality.
No taste.
Just regurgitation.
And that is the struggle for AI when it comes to being a creative. A human creative knows you can’t just repeat certain phrases at nauseam, they care weight. AI does not get it. It has no taste, no awareness of its own voice. Hell, it doesn’t even understand when I ask it to stop filling potential one-word answers with so much fluff. It actually adds fluff.
When I eventually gave up on The Sleepy Astronomer channel and searched for 3I-Atlas updates elsewhere, I found many, if not most, of the other options featured the exact same narrator. Same cadence to a tee, complete with the overdramatic “and here’s the part nobody is talking about” moments.
If you aren't spotting ChatGPT in the wild just yet, I trust you will as the ChatGPT voice ~quietly~ takes over.*
If content creators and their sponsors don’t start noticing, the variety that is meant to exist online will feel less like a massive library of unique personalities, and more like a suburb where dinner is either Chili's or Olive Garden. If they do notice, then the AI will be forced to adapt (million dollar question is can it?), or the prompters of AI will be forced to get better at retaining the human touch while integrating with the speed and capabilities of AI.
But here's the part nobody is talking about: ( annoyed yet?)*
Thanks to AI, we can all start to see the importance of human oversight and the beauty, value, and challenge of truly inspired work. We just have to take time to notice.
You Don’t Serve Steak & Shake At The Symphony
I took my dad for father's day to the orchestra perform a tribute to Steven Spielberg and John Williams.
You could argue that the combination of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and those particular scores is one of the best demonstrations of beauty that only a human can produce, and no AI bot would appreciate - though they may be able to share a convincing report about why they should appreciate it.
And while I've heard his music many different times in many different places, hearing multiple scores back to back provided a unique experience.
While sitting there jaw-dropped in awe (my dad’s head bobbing to the beat like Kendrick was on stage) I remember thinking - do all his songs sound the same?
Obviously not, but there are several very notable similarities, which naturally I had to take a deep dive into. Turns out, his choice of instrumentation, tempos & time signatures, melodies, even to the way he accents with flutes, crescendos with horns - it all adds up to what makes John Williams, Sir John Williams.
And those stylistic choices that happen to work together so well don’t happen by accident. They come from decades of study, dedication, practice, and of course, the development of taste. The difference between human and AI. His work is truly inspired and connects emotionally, deeply, and universally - like the best marketing can.
Of course, his music isn’t best for every situation. Sometimes you just want to throw on some country and sip a beer, but for other cases, like epic cinema, nothing else will do. There's Steak 'n Shake, and there's Gibsons Steakhouse.
And you just don't serve Steak 'n Shake at the symphony.
Takeaways
So where do we go from here?
Trying to predict where all this goes reminds me of crypto. Or chaos theory.
How can we know when everything about AI is so fast? It’s possible tomorrow will bring to life to a tool that bridges the communication gap between humans and ChatGPT. Imagine, finally getting through to the bot so it understands what humans mean when we say, I truly don’t need more fluff.
For those using AI daily, have you been picking up on the copy/pasting? Does it bother you?
What other predictions or observations are worth observing as we collectively wonder what is next for creativity, for business, and for humanity.
-AM
*If you picked up on the AI tone, kudos. You have seen the light. You can use that wisdom to gain trust from your audience, while everyone else loses theirs.
