MC.68: Everyone is an artist now... or are they?

It's been a week since OpenAI released their new image model, and the internet has exploded with creativity. Suddenly, everyone can generate stunning visuals, experiment with style transfers, and create impressive UI mockups with minimal effort.

The immediate reaction? "This is the death of graphic designers." But is it really?

This narrative feels familiar. When smartphones put high-quality cameras in everyone's pockets, did professional photography disappear? Not at all. The tools democratized, but mastery remained elusive.

If we look back even further to Marcel Duchamp and the concept of "ready-made" art, we're reminded that being an artist was never solely about technical skill—it was about ideas and the ability to propagate them.

As the technical barriers fall, the fundamental challenge remains: convincing people of your vision, bringing them along, and demonstrating the value of your work.

What's happening with AI image generation is part of a broader pattern. The same arguments emerge with every new AI tool:

1. Cursor (now worth $10b) signals "the end of developers"

2. OpenAI Image Agent means "graphic designers are obsolete"

3. AI writing tools suggest "writers are no longer needed"

This narrow framing misses the bigger picture. AI isn't targeting specific professions—it's transforming all of them.And not just digital ones.

As robotics advances over the next 5-10 years, physical tasks—starting with simple ones like changing light bulbs and gradually progressing to more complex operations—will undergo similar transformations.

The real question isn't "What skills are being replaced?" but rather "What can humans do that machines cannot?" For creative professionals, this means identifying where AI falls short and focusing efforts there.

It's also worth embracing the imperfections of AI-generated content. Consider live streaming platforms like Twitch—they offer significantly lower production value than television, but compensate through platform-specific engagement mechanisms like chat interaction, polls, and subscription models.

Similarly, AI image generation offers a compelling trade-off: dramatically reduced cost and production time in exchange for imperfect outputs (see exemple above 🫠 ). The key is understanding when these trade-offs make sense.

OpenAI's image model, for instance, excels at illustrations, comics, and typographic compositions while producing merely adequate photographs. This suggests new opportunities in marketing, social media, and communication where rapid, programmatic creation of stylized visuals could transform how we consume media.

The smartest approach isn't to fight against this wave but to ride it—identifying where AI excels, where it falters, and how these strengths and weaknesses will reshape not just how we work, but what we produce.

By understanding these nuances across all professions, we can identify opportunities where human expertise, creativity, and judgment remain not just relevant but essential.

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Until next Thursday 🎉