AI, Creativity And What We Actually Value

How much do you care about who created something versus whether that content moved you?

Do you remember (or did you even care about) who wrote the last movie that moved you to tears… or was it about the story?
Do you know if the last article you read and shared everywhere had parts of it written using AI… and did that change anything for you?
How about that last TikTok that was totally created with AI but was interesting enough that it captivated your attention (and you wound up subscribing to the channel)?

Should content created without any AI be labeled as such?

Because that seems to be where this conversation is heading.
A growing number of creators, brands and platforms are experimenting with labels like “human-made,” “AI-free,” or “no AI used.” (you can read more about that here: Is This Product ‘Human-Made’? The Race To Establish An AI-Free Logo via BBC)
It feels like a natural reaction… almost instinctual.

And we’ve seen this before.

Organic food… fair trade coffee… locally sourced everything.
When something new enters the market, we create labels to signal trust.
But here’s the problem…
AI isn’t a category… it’s a strange new layer.
AI isn’t a tool we can isolate… it’s a capability that’s bleeding into everything.
It’s already embedded in a lot of the tools we use every day.
Auto-complete… grammar suggestions… image enhancement… most content editing software… search…

So where exactly do we draw the line?

If I write something and use a tool to refine the language (or create a structure… or prod the idea… or tweak some lines… or help me get started) is that still human-made?
And if it’s not… how much of the work needs to be “pure” before it qualifies?
If a filmmaker uses AI for special effects but tells a powerful story… does the label matter (honestly, do you care that the special effects were created by a human coding it… or if the human used a text-prompt instead)?
If a brand uses AI to generate content that performs better… will the audience reject it?

Or will they just keep scrolling… watching… clicking… sharing?

Because that’s the part we don’t like to admit.
The market doesn’t reward process… it rewards outcomes.
And great outcomes are (usually) the product of great ideas executed well… (we don’t care if a human recorded the guitar part or if it’s a sample… do we?).

We say we care about authenticity… we say we want human creativity.

But what we really want… is something that was worth our time.
And those two things hardly ever align (in fact, they’re often in direct conflict).
My best written work typically pales in comparison to a rando joke meme that I share in terms of performance.

At the same time, there’s a real economic tension building.

If AI can produce content faster and cheaper… what happens to the people who used to do that work?
Do we pay more for human-made?
Do we value it differently?
Or do we just accept the trade-off and move on?

Because we’ve seen this pattern before.

Technology changes the nature of work.
It doesn’t eliminate the need for work.
Technology changes how creativity is expressed.
It doesn’t eliminate creativity.
But it does force us to decide what we value… and what we’re willing to pay for.

And maybe that’s where this whole labeling conversation starts to fall apart (or starts to feel a little naive)?

Because it assumes that people will make decisions based on how something was created.
But in reality…
We tend to make decisions based on how something makes us feel.
So maybe the better question isn’t whether we should label AI content…
It’s this…

In a world where everything is becoming part human… part machine… do we actually care who made it… or just whether it’s worth our attention?

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

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