Behind-the-scenes breakdowns of how real AI creators make their work.

Tag

opinion

A collection of 178 posts.

Manuela Klauser Knew What She Was Making Before She Let the AI Near It

Manuela Klauser makes "Soft Goth Surrealism" with AI — dark, gothic figures with a pop-whimsy undercurrent that's shown up at the Saatchi Gallery and across international AI art exhibitions. Here's how she actually does it.

creative process

Julian van Dieken Accidentally Became the First AI Artist in a Museum

Julian van Dieken is a photographer and educator who started an AI account just to learn something new — and ended up with his image hanging in the Mauritshuis in place of Vermeer. His actual process is worth knowing about.

Solo digital artist Kelly Boesch working on AI-generated artwork at a computer in a creative studio

creative process Featured

How Kelly Boesch Built a Studio of One With AI

Kelly Boesch spent 17 years at IMAX before AI gave her a way to make the work she'd always wanted to make. The process is worth studying.

Developer at laptop reviewing automated marketing funnel dashboard with code editor and analytics open side by side

build in public

Behind the Build: Automating My Own Self-Promotion in a Day (and the Silent Bug That Almost Sank It)

Almost nobody enjoys self-promotion, so I tried to automate mine — a whole funnel, built in one session. A few days later I found out it had been throwing every lead away. Here's the build, and why you can't fully trust the machine that does the part you hate.

Microsoft Cancels Claude Access: What It Means for AI Users

Microsoft's cancellation of Claude Code licenses signals the end of experimenting with multiple AI assistants — and the beginning of platform lock-in hell.

Google AI certificate diploma on laptop screen with crowd of diverse students in background

Google's AI Certificate Hit 635,000 Students. Here's What That Actually Means.

635,000 students earned Google's AI certificate—but who really benefits? We unpack what Big Tech credentialing actually signals for your career and AI fluency standards.

Developer debugging broken internal links caused by incorrect domain constant in site automation code

How one wrong domain constant broke four internal links at once

The optimizer is the unglamorous part of the AI pipeline — and where the most teachable bug lived. Here's the break, the fix, and why one constant solved it.

Automated publishing workflow diagram showing Ghost CMS dashboard with scheduled posts and code scripts running in background

Ghost CMS Automation: The Publish Button I Never Press

A cron script publishes this site — no browser, no human. Building it surfaced timezone bugs, a members-only content leak, and a two-phase commit bolted onto a CMS.

Three illustrated AI robot agents with dog name tags on colorful abstract digital background

Named AI agents: why I gave my automations three dogs' names

Naming automation agents Sherman, Wilson, and Sebastian wasn't branding — it forced scoped roles, clean handoffs, and a system William could actually debug and trust.

AI orchestrator managing a multi-step automated content pipeline with connected workflow nodes and agents

AI orchestrator: the layer that watches your whole pipeline

The orchestrator doesn't write or publish — it watches everything else and fills the gaps. Here's how the memory loop, arc tracker, and gap analysis actually work.

Writer reviewing AI-generated draft on laptop screen with research notes and content workflow diagrams nearby

ai-writing-pipeline

AI research-to-draft pipeline: why a prompt rule isn't enough

Two models, a frozen audit trail, and a style guide built from real edit-diffs — here's what it actually takes to keep a human voice intact across an AI content pipeline.

New York Times newsroom journalists working at desks amid tensions over AI monitoring and labor contracts

The New York Times AI Fight: Monitoring Comes Before Replacement

The Times is suing OpenAI while using AI to track its own workers. The union's grievance reveals what AI governance actually looks like inside creative organizations—and why the surveillance fight matters more than the automation one.

Google I/O 2026 stage presentation showcasing Gemini agentic AI features to a live audience

Google I/O 2026: When the work itself becomes optional

Gemini Spark runs while you sleep. Antigravity builds an OS in 12 hours. Google's agentic AI isn't about better tools—it's about whether the craft still matters.

Person looking frustrated at a glowing screen displaying AI-generated text, symbolizing distrust and deception

The Public Doesn't Hate AI — They Hate Being Lied To

New polling shows widespread distrust of AI companies, but the real issue isn't the technology — it's the dishonesty about what it does and who benefits.

AI tools displaying creative features with a person exploring unexpected capabilities beyond obvious functions

The Hidden Features Aren't The Point

Everyone's sharing Claude Code tips, but we're missing what actually matters about AI tools

Professional using AI tools at a modern desk, symbolizing the evolution of human skills in the age of artificial intelligence

Your Skills Aren't Atrophying — They're Evolving

That "getting dumber" feeling from using AI isn't skill loss — it's career progression in disguise.

Meta executive deflecting criticism at podium amid Ray-Ban smart glasses privacy controversy

Meta Shoots the Messenger on Ray-Ban Privacy Reports

When contractors reported users having sex while wearing smart glasses, Meta fired them instead of fixing the problem.

Google I/O 2026 stage presentation introducing Gemini Spark AI agent features to a live audience

Google I/O 2026: What I'd want answered before turning on Gemini Spark

Google's Gemini Spark runs 24/7 in your Gmail and Calendar — even when your devices are off. Here's what needs answering before you hand over that access.

Authors Guild copyright lawsuit against OpenAI dismissed, gavel beside AI chatbot interface on screen

The lawsuit is over. The question it was asking is still open.

The Musk vs. OpenAI lawsuit got dismissed on a technicality, but the question it was asking — who does OpenAI actually answer to? — never got an answer. For anyone using ChatGPT or DALL-E to run their creative work, that's the part worth paying attention to.

Writer at desk directing AI creative workflow on screen, symbolizing shift from human to AI-led content creation

From Helping AI to Directing AI: The Uncomfortable Truth About Creative Workflows

What happens when the line between intuitive coding and autonomous systems disappears entirely?

Photographer's hands holding a film camera beside a glowing AI-generated image on a laptop screen

Vagabond Diary: What a photographer brings to AI art that prompts can't

Charles Lopez shot for GQ before turning to AI. His work still looks like 1985 film photography. The background isn't obsolete—it's the whole point.

Bar graph showing AI productivity metrics with upward arrows contrasting with declining output quality indicators

Token maxing: How Meta and Amazon measure AI productivity backward

Meta ranked 85,000 employees by tokens consumed and crowned "Token Legends." Employees gamed it by running agents overnight. It's Goodhart's Law with a $900M price tag.

Person frustrated at laptop surrounded by clocks, wasting time creating brief social media content

Stop Spending Five Hours on Five-Second Content

Most social media posts get consumed in seconds, yet creators spend hours perfecting them. There's a better way to think about your time.

Laptop screen showing an AI-powered pitch generator workflow dashboard with automation nodes and content pipeline

ai content pipeline

AI pitch generator: how the front of my content loop actually works

My AI system used to auto-draft content I never asked for. The fix was a single architectural shift: pitch first, wait for approval, then build. Here's how it works.