If you’re reading this, you probably care about craft.

You care how things are made. You notice details other people don’t, and you’re willing to put in more effort than is strictly necessary because the work feels like a reflection of you.

I care about that too. Probably to a fault.

For most of my career, I’ve wanted to put more time into things than anyone was paying me for. Two hours was never enough. I could always see another ten hours of improvements waiting just beneath the surface. Even if I didn’t get paid for it, I still put in that time. This alone made me a terrible freelancer.

That impulse has always followed me, especially in video. I wanted to scrutinize the sound. The lighting. The color. The rhythm of every cut. Would someone notice how we heard the speaker before we saw them? I wanted the work to hold up if someone really looked into it.

And then a client said something I still think about.

“I’ve wanted to tell you this for a while,” they said. “I’d rather you spend your time making ten okay videos than one great one. I can do more with ten videos. Could you make a hundred videos?”

That wasn’t harsh feedback. It wasn’t even wrong. But I took it hard, and if I’m being honest, I still do.

More recently, I heard a different version of the same message. The work was beautiful. The website looked great. The videos were strong. It’s just a shame they weren’t turning into more sales.

For a long time, I wore that criticism as something about my ability or my taste. It wasn’t until later that I realized it had nothing to do with that.

Commercial work isn’t judged by how it’s made. It’s judged by what it does.

Most of it doesn’t live very long.

It shows up in a feed, competes for a second of attention, and then it’s gone. Replaced by the next thing. And the next. And the next.

That’s not failure. That is the job.

We like to talk about art as if it’s meant to be studied, revisited, and lived with forever. But most commercial creative work is built for motion, not permanence. It’s designed to be glanced at, not contemplated.

Our brains decide almost instantly whether something is worth more time. Color, contrast, familiarity, motion. That’s usually all it gets. In that environment, the difference between “great” and “good enough” collapses quickly.

This is where the language shift matters.

A lot of what we’re making for businesses isn’t really artwork. It’s assets.

Assets are meant to be deployed. Tested. Swapped. Iterated. Retired. They’re part of a system that values consistency and volume over singular moments of brilliance.

When someone says, “This looks beautiful, I just wish it turned into more sales,” they’re not critiquing my craft. They’re saying, "this wasn't worth it." The work did its job aesthetically, but not operationally.

We’re pouring ourselves into things that are being consumed as disposable inputs. Not because clients don’t care, but because the systems they’re operating inside don’t reward reverence. It rewards engagement, shares, and sales.

Once I made this realization, everything changed. Around that same time, I committed to learning AI. And here’s what I learned.

AI is good at the exact things feeds demand: speed, variation, volume, iteration. It doesn’t need its identity affirmed. It doesn’t mind being “good enough.”

That’s what makes artists uneasy.

But here’s the context that’s easy to miss: a lot of the work people are paying for is meant to be disposable. Not cherished. Not studied. Used.

It’s designed to be deployed, replaced, cut up, remixed, and forgotten so the next piece can take its place.

For people like us who care deeply about craft, this creates a quiet drain. Not from making the work, but from keeping up with the demand for constant output in environments that don’t reward care.

Seen this way, AI isn’t devaluing art. It’s matching the expectations of the work it’s being asked to do.

The harder question isn’t whether AI belongs in creative work.

It’s this:
Where are you putting your care?

And is the system you’re working inside actually capable of receiving it?