About The Series
This blog is part of AI & Our Kids’ Future, a 4-part series exploring how AI is reshaping work, creativity, and education, and how we can raise the next generation to thrive in an AI-driven world.
What Happens When the Art Is Made, But the Artist Is Gone?
After facing the reality of jobs vanishing, there’s another challenge creeping in: what happens when the very work of being human starts to be replaced?
(If you missed Part 1 - The Job-Taking Elephant in the Room, we looked at how AI is already reshaping the workforce.)
We’re told to keep up. To pivot. To embrace the new wave of AI-created roles:
- Prompt engineers
- AI safety officers
- Human-machine relationship managers (yes, that’s a thing)
And sure, 4.5 million new roles have emerged globally in the wake of AI.
➡️ Source: World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report
My son still draws pixelated superheroes on his iPad. My daughter spends hours making cardboard houses for her toys. What happens when the joy of making things becomes something they outsource instead of experience?
And here’s the question that won’t leave me:
What are we giving up… to keep up?
🎨 When Creativity Becomes Command
We used to make art.
Now we describe it.
We used to write stories.
Now we outline them.
We used to play with ideas.
Now we instruct the machine to do it for us.
Somewhere along the way, “create” turned into “direct.”
The end result might look the same to a business, a blog, a portrait, a product design...
But the process?
It’s no longer human.
It’s efficient, sure, but it’s stripped bare.
No clay under our fingernails.
No brush strokes.
No flow state.
No heart.
We’ve traded messy magic for machine precision, and maybe we’ve lost something in the exchange.
🧠 What’s the Cost of Efficiency?
And I can’t help but wonder:
❓ What is this doing to our mental health?
❓ What will this do to our kids’ sense of creativity, confidence, contribution?
We’re in danger of forgetting what it feels like to be in something.
To lose ourselves in the joy of making, not just for productivity, but for pleasure.
So yes, let’s adapt.
Let’s evolve.
Let’s learn the tools.
But let’s also ask:
What does it cost to become a commander of creativity, rather than a creator?
Because when the art is made... but the artist is gone...
What kind of world are we actually building?
💬 Join the Conversation
I’d love to hear your thoughts:
❓Are we teaching our kids to create, or just to command?
❓How do we keep the joy of making alive in a world where bots can do it faster?
Drop a comment below.
Next week: Thinking Ahead Without Fear; we’ll talk about future-proof skills and raising resilient kids in a world that won’t sit still.
Thanks for reading!
Gill x
🤖 P.S. About Those Images...
If you’re loving the visuals in this series, yep, they were whipped up with a little help from AI.
Of course I used Artistly.ai, because if the bots can design while I drink coffee and plot world domination, that’s a win-win. ☕🤖
Want to create your own unique, scroll-stopping images?
Check out Artistly.ai and start designing like a creative cyborg with taste.
This is an affiliate link, which means I may earn a small commission if you decide to sign up, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend tools I genuinely use and love.
🔗 This blog is part of the “AI & Our Kids’ Future” Series:
💡 Part 1: The Job-Taking Elephant in the Room
When AI doesn’t just change jobs… it replaces them.
🎨 Part 2: When the Art Is Made, But the Artist Is Gone
What happens when creativity becomes prompt-writing?
📚 Part 3: Thinking Ahead Without Fear
Subject choices, shifting paths, and future-proof skills.
💡 Part 4: AI Might Be the Future, But We’re Still Raising the Humans
The skills bots can’t replace, and how we raise leaders to guide AI, not just follow it.
0 comments