When anyone can create, what is left for creators?

Anyone can create

In recent years, we have seen an unprecedented surge in the availability of creative tools. Previously, creating high-quality visual or audio content required years of training, expensive equipment, and professional skills. Today, virtually anyone with a smartphone or computer can use AI services, ready-made templates, and convenient applications such as Canva, CapCut, or Midjourney to create what was once considered the prerogative of experts. On the one hand, this is the democratization of creativity: barriers to entry have been lowered, and millions of people have gained the opportunity for self-expression. On the other hand, there is a downside: content oversaturation and the devaluation of creative products.

What happens to the market when design layouts, music, or illustrations are churned out in huge quantities at minimal cost? How do mid-level professionals react when their services are being replaced by cheap solutions? What happens to unique authorial style in a world of TikTok templates and trends? And finally, how does our perception of human creativity change when there is always an algorithm nearby that can generate something “similar” in seconds?

I have long been preoccupied with the question: where does authenticity go when creativity becomes ubiquitous? The world is flooded with images, music, and ideas, but in this abundance, it is increasingly difficult to find something personal and alive. The availability of tools has changed not only the economics but also the psychology of creativity: the boundaries between professional and amateur are blurring, the visual environment is becoming increasingly homogeneous, and authorial style is becoming a rarity. History has seen similar waves before, from the advent of photography to microstocks and streaming. But today the stakes are higher: the very value of human creativity is changing, and with it, people's motivation to create.

When everything is possible, what is talent worth?

The super-accessibility of creative tools inevitably affects the economy of creative industries. When anyone can create a logo, edit a video, or compose a track for free or for a nominal fee, the supply of content on the market increases dramatically. And according to basic economic principles, when there is an excess of supply, the cost per unit (in this case, a creative product) falls. This puts significant pressure on the prices and fees of creative professionals.

It is therefore natural that cheap or free tools undermine the value of expertise. For example, online graphic editors with ready-made templates such as Canva have given rise to the widespread belief that professional designers are no longer needed. Why pay an agency or freelancer when you can “do it yourself” with a convenient app? This approach devalues the years of training and skills that distinguish an experienced designer: after all, design is not only the ability to arrange elements, but also a deep understanding of visual communication, branding, and audience psychology. When a design product is reduced to choosing a template, it becomes a mass-market commodity, losing its status as an intellectual service.

Digital platforms such as Fiverr and other freelance exchanges exacerbate the situation by offering customers services at bargain prices. A huge number of beginners from all over the world are ready to take on a project for $5-10, seeking to lure the customer with price. As a result, a buyer's market is formed, where cheapness is valued above all else, not quality. Experienced specialists are either forced to dump prices or leave such platforms. As analysts note, large freelance marketplaces encourage a “race to the bottom” - a race to the lowest price - because customers deliberately seek out the cheapest offer, and contractors are forced to take on a large volume of orders. It is not surprising that serious professionals avoid such creative exchanges. This shift in focus from quality to quantity is characteristic not only of design, but also of related fields, from stock photography to music. The market is flooded with a large number of average and low-quality works, and it becomes difficult even for talented authors to break through this noise.

The impact of hyper-accessible tools on the so-called middle tier of creative professions is particularly noticeable. Previously, it was possible to distinguish three levels: amateurs/beginners, strong mid-level professionals (e.g., regional designers, photographers, illustrators with moderate rates), and the elite (top agencies, renowned masters with premium prices). Now, thanks to technology, the lower tier-amateurs-has caught up: they have tools that simplify technical tasks. The upper tier will remain-there will always be demand for the best of the best, for exclusivity. But the middle tier risks being “washed out.” Clients with small budgets go to newcomers or do it themselves in a constructor, while large customers immediately turn to big names. As a result, average professionals lose orders. Studies on the economics of AI in creativity clearly indicate that the market is becoming oversaturated, skills are valued less, and even high-quality work no longer guarantees decent pay, as overall supply is growing and rates are falling. In essence, artists and creative workers are seeing a decline in income simply because of changes in market conditions, regardless of their skill level.

A similar trend is observed in the field of illustration and generative art. Modern neural networks allow decent images to be created for pennies, which is fraught with overproduction of art and falling prices in the image market. One of the authors of a research paper on the value of creativity notes: thanks to AI, the threshold for entering the art world has become lower, the market is filling up with works, and this could cause their average value to plummet. Yes, on the other hand, new niches for monetization are emerging (NFTs, personalized content, etc.), but the risk of devaluation of human creativity remains real.

Thus, in economic terms, the hyper-accessibility of tools is hitting the labor market: competition is growing exponentially, prices and fees are under pressure, and some roles are disappearing altogether. Mid-level specialists-the very “hard workers” of the creative class- are under attack when “everyone is their own designer/photographer/editor.” A kind of paradox of abundance arises: the more content there is around, the less each individual unit is valued. Below, we will look at specific examples of how this manifests itself in different industries.

The world of templates and virtual stars

To better understand how hyper-accessible tools are changing the creative industry, let's look at a few illustrative examples from contemporary practice.

New technologies have made it possible to create fully digital media personalities that compete with real people. A striking example is Noonoouri, a virtual fashion influencer with hundreds of thousands of followers. She was created by designer Joerg Zuber and initially rose to fame in fashion, collaborating with Dior, Balenciaga, Valentino, and other brands. In 2023, a landmark moment occurred: virtual singer Noonoouri was signed by Warner Music and released her debut single. This is the first time a digital character has been given a full contract in the music industry. It is noteworthy that Noonoouri is backed by a team of creatives and AI technology - her image and music are artificially generated. Such examples call into question the future of professions such as model, singer, and actor: if a brand can promote a “drawn” influencer who never causes scandals, never ages, and is completely controlled by its creators, does this devalue the work of living artists? On the one hand, this is simply a new form of creativity, but on the other, it signals that the boundaries are already blurred. Another example for comparison is the virtual model Lil Miquela, who also signed deals with top brands and even released tracks, while her producers attracted millions in investment, assessing the potential of such projects very highly. So far, the long-term sustainability of virtual figures' popularity is questionable - there have been failures after high-profile launches - but the fact remains: competition between humans and digital avatars in the creative field is already a reality.

Social networks, especially TikTok, set a dizzying pace and uniformity of content. When a new trend emerges - be it a visual effect, transition, or meme template - thousands of users repeat it using the same patterns. Apps like CapCut have simplified this process: just take a ready-made template (video editing template), insert your photos/videos, and the result will be a video indistinguishable from hundreds of others in the trend. From a technical point of view, this is brilliant; now anyone can edit clips with effects without knowing the ins and outs of video editing. But culturally, we are getting an avalanche of identical content. The feed is filled with twin videos, with only faces or small details changing, while the editing, music, and idea are copied. Users often ask themselves, “Why is everyone posting the same thing?” This is the effect of template creativity. On the one hand, trends unite the audience around common themes, but on the other hand, they lead to a devaluation of originality: the ability to quickly copy a successful formula is valued, rather than coming up with your own. Moreover, social media algorithms themselves promote this behavior: an original video may go unnoticed, but dozens of parodies or repeats based on it will gain millions of views because the format has already “caught on.” Tools like CapCut only reinforce this pattern, turning mass creativity into a conveyor belt. As a result, a monoculture of trends emerges in the visual environment - when a lot of visually similar content appears at the same time. Some critics call this phenomenon “visual noise” or garbage - information overload from excessively monotonous visuals. Of course, there are unique creators on TikTok, but it's difficult for them to stand out against this flood of cookie-cutter clips.

Platforms such as Fiverr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com are positioned as a way to provide work for thousands of talented people around the world. In practice, however, they have become synonymous with cheap creative services. Fiverr became famous for the fact that initially all services there started at a base price of $5. For this money, you could order, for example, a logo, a short video, voice-over, etc. The marketing slogan “design for the price of a cup of coffee” attracted a lot of customers, but also caused outrage among the design community. After all, a high-quality logo cannot cost $5 without compromising the work process. Designer Sasha Greif's experiment showed that the results of ultra-cheap orders are predictably low quality: many “authors” on Fiverr simply downloaded ready-made stock templates or copied other people's ideas, passing them off as their own, otherwise they would not be able to recoup the time spent. Moreover, in order to earn at least something from such meager orders, freelancers take on a large number of projects and do them quickly, without deep elaboration. This creates a vicious circle: clients don't expect much for $5 and get mediocre designs, convincing themselves that “there's nothing special about it,” thereby devaluing the profession. The race to lower prices hurts everyone: good specialists leave, those who are willing to work for pennies (often beginners or representatives of low-income regions) remain, and the overall level of creative production declines. Fiverr, realizing this problem, even launched the Fiverr Pro program with a selection of professionals and higher rates, but the overall reputation of the “ultra-cheap creative market” has already taken hold. For the creative industries as a whole, this is an alarming signal: if the customer no longer sees the difference between a cookie-cutter service for $5 and a custom job for $500, then the value of creativity in their eyes has been leveled. This situation is not only noticeable in design: on music exchanges, beats are sold for a few dollars, on content exchanges, articles are written for a ruble per thousand characters - and all this puts pressure on the professional market.

An equally telling example is ArtStation and the protest against AI content. Professional artists have been particularly sensitive to the invasion of hyper-accessible tools into their field with the advent of generative neural networks (Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, etc.). The popular platform ArtStation, where artists post their portfolios, became a battleground between digital and human creativity in 2022. When AI-generated works began to appear on the ArtStation homepage, hundreds of outraged authors simultaneously posted an image with the icon “🚫🤖 No AI” in protest. This flash mob literally flooded the site - the protest image itself became a top trend. The artists stated bluntly: “No to AI images created by stealing our creativity.” It is important to understand the motivation here: neural networks are trained on huge arrays of images collected from the internet (including works from ArtStation) without asking the authors. In other words, AI “absorbs” the fruits of someone else's labor, mixes styles, and produces new images. For many artists, this is tantamount to theft and plagiarism, only committed without human involvement. “If the meaning of creating art disappears, and all our work is good for is being fed to a machine that cobbles together an AI image from bits and pieces, then why bother creating at all?” artist Susan Helmig emotionally remarked, threatening to remove her work from public access. This feeling of despair and demotivation arose in many: you hone your skills for years, and then technology instantly generates something similar, trained on your own paintings. The protest on ArtStation highlighted this ethical conflict. The platform had to introduce a “NoAI” option for works so that authors could prohibit their images from being included in AI training samples. However, there has been no complete ban on AI content, and tensions remain. This case clearly demonstrates that artists feel their signature style is being devalued when machines begin to churn out similar works without the effort and inspiration that humans put into them. At the same time, the art community is concerned about the proliferation of generated images - for all their impressiveness, they can flood galleries and displace original works, creating the illusion that creativity is an easy and free resource.

The music industry underwent a similar transformation earlier than others, with the transition from physical media sales to digital distribution and streaming platforms. On the one hand, any band or artist can now upload tracks to the internet themselves, bypassing labels, on Bandcamp, SoundCloud, YouTube, or directly to streaming services such as Spotify/Apple Music. The barrier to entry is minimal: record an album at home on your laptop and deliver it to the listener. But this ocean of accessible music has led to the monetary value of a particular song or album tending towards zero. For the user, a $10 monthly subscription opens up a catalog of millions of songs, each of which brings the rights holder a fraction of a cent per listen. Spotify pays around $0.003-0.005 per stream - a song needs to be listened to about 229 times for the musician to earn at least $1. It is not surprising that with this approach, music is increasingly perceived as “disposable content,” a background resource. Music producer Rick Rubin said that a great song is infused with soul and a unique perspective, while an algorithmically generated or mass-produced composition lacks that spark - but, alas, the market dictates the terms of a constant stream of content to musicians. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek stated bluntly: “You can't release music once every three or four years and think that's enough.” In essence, he suggested that artists endlessly increase their track production in order to stay afloat. This model leads to oversaturation: tens of thousands of new songs are uploaded to streaming services every day. The competition is incredible, and the audience's attention is scattered. Many listeners don't even remember the names of the performers - the playlist changes too quickly. Music has turned into “content” that is quickly consumed and immediately forgotten. Of course, there have been counter-movements: fans support their favorite independent artists directly through Bandcamp and Patreon (Bandcamp even held days when 100% of the revenue went to the musicians, bypassing the commission, and fans transferred more than $20 million in support of the artists in a few months). In other words, the value of a creative product can still be high if an emotional connection between the artist and the audience has been established. But in the mass market, there is a clear devaluation of music as a commodity. Many young performers are forced to work “for exposure,” agreeing to penny royalties for the chance to go viral. And listeners are getting used to the fact that music is available in unlimited quantities for almost free, hence the decline in its estimated value. As soon as content becomes digital and ultra-accessible, it begins to be perceived as a utilitarian service rather than a work of art.

The conclusion is obvious: the scenario repeats itself in different industries. New tools and platforms make it easier and faster to create and distribute creative work, but this is accompanied by a wave of monotony, falling earnings, and conflicts between the “new wave” of content and traditional authors. To gain a deeper understanding of the essence of the phenomenon, we can look to historical parallels - after all, something similar has happened before, just in different forms.

History has already been through this

The idea that the accessibility of technology changes creative industries is not new. More than once in history, innovation has democratized the creative process, making it more widespread, and this has always led to changes in the market and culture.

Take photography, for example. In the 19th century, photography was the preserve of the elite, requiring bulky cameras and complex chemical processes. Each shot required skill and expense, which is why professional photographers were highly valued. However, with the development of technology, cameras became increasingly easy to use. The advent of autofocus and fully automatic settings at the end of the 20th century removed a key barrier: previously, only trained photographers knew how to manually set the exposure and focus, anticipating the development of the scene. Automatic cameras allowed any beginner to take sharp, properly lit pictures just by pressing a button. Then the digital revolution lowered the threshold even further: film was no longer wasted, and you could experiment as much as you wanted - bad shots could be deleted immediately without any loss. And with the spread of smartphones with good cameras, everyone started taking pictures. As a result, the profession of photographer changed: the market was flooded with a multitude of amateur photos, and it became more difficult for professionals to stand out. At the same time, the photo bank market underwent a transformation. The classic photo stocks of the past (Corbis, Getty) sold images at high prices and paid photographers substantial fees. But the growth in the number of authors allowed agencies to change their model: instead of expensive individual sales, they began selling massively at low prices. This led to the emergence of microstocks (Shutterstock, iStockPhoto, etc.), where a photo license costs a couple of dollars, of which the author receives cents. When the number of photographers grew exponentially, each individual photographer became easily replaceable, and photos became a commodity in a giant catalog. Agencies no longer competed on the quality of their photos, but on price and library size. This devastated the earnings of many professionals: what could previously be sold exclusively for $1,000 could now be sold on microstock for $1 and purchased by hundreds of customers. Industry veterans were indignant, accusing newcomers of being willing to work for pennies and destroying the market, but these veterans themselves had once replaced expensive studios by offering more affordable services. Such is evolution: technology and overproduction inevitably led to a drop in average prices. And today, against the backdrop of AI, history is repeating itself - photographers are protesting against generative images, just as they once protested against microstocks or “amateurs with digital cameras.”

Another obvious example is web design. In the 2000s, creating a website was a complex task that required knowledge of HTML, CSS, design, and programming skills. Web studios flourished, creating turnkey websites for significant budgets. But over time, CMS (content management systems) such as WordPress and Joomla appeared, followed by full-fledged visual builders (Wix, Squarespace). The WordPress ecosystem, which became extremely popular, played a special role. There are countless ready-made templates and themes for it, both paid and free. Businesspeople and bloggers no longer need to hire a web designer: they can buy a template for $50 and get a professional-looking website, all they need to do is replace the text and images. This has given rise to a whole market for premium templates, while at the same time reducing the flow of orders for unique designs. Many small projects prefer template solutions - they are fast, cheap, and “pretty.” But a side effect has been the devaluation of original web design and the standardization of website appearance. Popular themes are sold in thousands of copies, resulting in the internet being filled with websites that differ only in their logos and content but look like twins. The risk of design duplication has become a conscious problem: if a brand values a unique image, a template will not suit it. However, most small companies are willing to accept that their website is “like everyone else's” as long as it is cheaper. In addition, the low barrier to entry into the profession has led to an influx of novice webmasters who create websites on WordPress without having in-depth knowledge. According to experts, WordPress's reputation has even suffered because many inexperienced people use it to create low-quality websites. Here again, we see a familiar pattern: quality may suffer, but mass appeal prevails. Nevertheless, as in graphic design, web developers have found a survival strategy - moving into the premium segment, creating custom solutions that emphasize the exclusivity of handcrafted work and fine-tuning to the client's needs.

And, of course, music. Even before the era of streaming, in the 80s and 90s, there was a transition from expensive analog studios to affordable means of music production. Synthesizers, then software sequencers, MIDI - all of this allowed musicians to record tracks at home. Whereas before it was almost impossible to record an album without a label and a professional studio, by the 2000s the concept of a “home studio” had become commonplace for every enthusiast. And then the internet and platforms like MySpace and YouTube made it possible to distribute music independently. This undoubtedly opened the way for thousands of talents who did not fit into the format of major labels. But at the same time, the market was flooded with music. There was an inflation of value: people stopped appreciating albums as artifacts, as the result of hard work - they became files in a playlist. Physical media (vinyl, CDs) set a certain standard of value: having paid $10–20, listeners treated their purchases with care, listened to them repeatedly, and examined the covers. Now, for the same amount of money, you can access all the music in the world - naturally, the care with which it is perceived has decreased. Music has become something to “scroll through,” like a social media feed. For musicians, this meant taking on roles that were previously unfamiliar to them - engaging in marketing, constantly reminding people about themselves with content, and looking for new ways to hold the listener's attention. Otherwise, their work would drown in a sea of others. This situation is typical for any field where there is too much content - an attention crisis ensues. The music industry has found some antidotes: for example, concert activity and merchandise - things that cannot be copied or downloaded for free - are now valued. Similarly, artists are beginning to sell not pictures, but a sense of connection with the author (through streams, blogs, social media, and fan patronage). These are responses to the challenges of democratization.

In general, historical examples teach us that every new technology that makes creativity mass-market expands the field of creativity on the one hand, but on the other hand inevitably cheapens the average product. More average-quality works appear, and audiences have to adapt - learn to filter and appreciate the new. The same photographers eventually shifted their focus to more complex genres, to artistry, and began to sell not so much photos as their vision (something a machine is incapable of). But the period of “painful transition” almost always passes - in part, we are in it now with regard to AI and new tools.

From authenticity to algorithm

In addition to economics, the hyper-accessibility of creativity also affects the culture of visual and musical space. When millions of people use the same tools and algorithms, a phenomenon of homogenization occurs - the standardization of style, content, and form.

The result is a monotonous visual landscape. But here's the paradox: tools offer endless possibilities for creativity, but most people prefer the path of least resistance - ready-made presets, filters, and templates. As a result, we see a lot of similar works. The templatization of design leads to the modern visual landscape (especially in the digital environment) becoming predictable. For example, graphic designers shared that an excessive enthusiasm for Canva and stock elements has given rise to a culture of template design - “beautiful, but like everyone else's.” This leads to “mass cloning” and a blurring of originality: templates and standard stock illustrations make content cookie-cutter, i.e., cut from the same mold. The visual landscape is flooded with similar images, and the effect of novelty is dulled. In interior design, for example, there is also talk of the “copy-paste” era, when popular solutions are replicated to such an extent that homes and offices around the world look as if they were designed by the same person. This is an aesthetic impoverishment of the environment.

Another problem is the overabundance of visual stimuli. When there is too much content, people stop appreciating it and consuming it thoughtfully. We scroll through our Instagram feed, flipping through hundreds of photos and videos without pausing. Attention inflation occurs: each individual image is lost in the flow. Many have expressed the opinion that the main result of the invasion of neural network creativity is the depletion of viewer attention and the devaluation of media content as such. Thirty years ago, there was a limited cultural space (a few TV channels, magazines), and significant works of art or media events became the property of everyone, widely appreciated and discussed. Today, everyone receives their own narrow stream of content based on their interests, and society is fragmented into information bubbles. Each bubble contains an excess of material, but little of it has lasting value. Visual garbage is the name given to the excessive, formulaic, low-quality visual objects that fill the space. These are advertising banners, memes, repetitive templates - everything that is quickly forgotten. There is a lot of it, and it competes for our attention with truly original things. As a result, the author's subtle visual language can simply get lost, remain unread by viewers tired of the abundance of images.

Manual craftsmanship has always implied a recognizable style, the individuality of the author. Great photographers, artists, and directors were distinguished by their signature style. Now, if everyone uses the same tools, styles become blurred. Neural networks, for example, generate images, often compiling features of the most popular styles (mixing Monet with Van Gogh, or making “concept art in the spirit of ArtStation”). This leads to a kind of arithmetic mean style. Experts warn that if artists start to overuse AI to save time, their work may also become monotonous over time. A study has shown that non-artists working with AI quickly reach a “plateau of monotony” - their images begin to resemble each other, varying only slightly. Only human vision can “break through” this wall of templates and bring something truly new. However, there is a risk: in a saturated market, even original artists may decide to conform to average tastes and trends in order to remain in demand. And this, again, undermines cultural diversity. In addition, if consumers cannot distinguish between what was created by a person and what was created by a machine (and increasingly, it is impossible to tell the difference visually), then the incentive to appreciate someone's unique authorship diminishes. As one critic wrote, we tend to admire a work less when we learn that it was created by AI - the magic of creativity disappears. This creates a vicious circle: authors lose the motivation to stand out, the public is less thoughtful and less appreciative of personalities, and culture becomes homogenized in a gray mass of content.

Of course, this is not an apocalyptic picture - unusual, powerful works are still valued, and new styles are emerging. But for a distinctive style to emerge, it takes time and audience attention, and that is precisely what is lacking. The risk of cultural loss is that when creative products are devalued, the very atmosphere of respect for creativity and innovation may disappear. The visual environment may slide into a state where everyone loves something familiar and does not demand anything new - after all, when you try something new, it is immediately copied and turned into yet another template.

What is the result? The over-availability of tools threatens to create a culture of templates and oversaturation. Of course, there are still niches for experimentation, underground creativity, and counterculture - perhaps movements that reject templates will become a reaction to the mainstream (for example, hand painting on canvas is back in fashion in certain circles, and analog photography is experiencing a renaissance as a protest against the “Photoshop” world). But mass visual culture has already changed: it has become more collectivist, trend-oriented, and less favorable to bright individualists. An author's style now has to be defended and protected, sometimes even legally (from AI copying).

Humans and algorithms: who really creates?

Economics and styles are one thing, but how society perceives human labor in comparison to machine labor, and what the creators themselves think about it, is no less important. The hyper-accessibility of technology raises several acute ethical and philosophical questions.

The value of human contribution. Psychological studies in recent years have revealed an interesting phenomenon: people tend to attribute less value to art if they know it was created by AI. In one experiment, participants were shown a series of paintings and asked to rate their beauty; half were told that the author was human, while the other half were told that the paintings were generated by a computer (in fact, all the images were from AI). The result: all other things being equal, paintings labeled “created by a human” received significantly higher ratings, while the same works labeled “AI” seemed less beautiful and meaningful to people. In other words, there is a pro-human bias in perception: knowing about the presence of a human creator, the viewer gets an additional sense of “soul” and depth in the work. This points to an important point: the value of art largely stems from the idea of the creative act, from the fact that “someone put a part of themselves into it.” If we remove this aura and present the work as the result of a cold algorithm, it is perceived differently emotionally. Of course, not everyone feels this way - the younger generation may be less categorical - but the trend is there. This presents an ethical dilemma for the industry: should we label content created by AI, and will it be considered “second-rate” compared to human-created content? Or, on the contrary, will habit take over over time and the public will cease to distinguish who the author is - in which case creators will have to somehow prove their “humanity” in their works in order to stand out.

“Work or talent?” Is respect for creative work declining? When everyone uses powerful tools, there is an illusion that “I can do it too, so there's no need to pay/appreciate it.” This is precisely what professionals fear - devaluation in public opinion. After all, if before, say, a high-class illustrator or composer was unique, and people understood that years of practice went into their work, now they might say, “So what, this picture is no worse than one made by a neural network.” Human labor becomes invisible, and no special role is recognized for it. This is even reflected in the terminology: phrases such as “now a neural network will draw it” and “why hire a photographer - everyone has a good iPhone” are popular. In other words, creativity is turning into a commodity, a standard resource. This is why the topic is so painful for creative communities - it is important for them to convey that their work is more than just pressing a button. It is no coincidence that on ArtStation, protesting artists spoke of “theft of creativity.” They felt that algorithms had appropriated the fruits of their imagination, averaged them out, and presented them without credit. From a legal standpoint, the authorship of AI works is a gray area: in many countries, a work created entirely by a machine is not protected by copyright because there is no human author. As a result, AI content is officially “nobody's,” which means that as a commodity, it is potentially more profitable for companies (no royalties to pay). This also worries creators: will studios start firing illustrators and buying unlicensed generative images? There have already been cases of layoffs: for example, Fiverr fired 30% of its staff and announced that it was switching to an “AI-first” strategy, essentially introducing auto-generated content instead of people. Thus, work ethics are being raised to the level of society - how do we feel about a situation where machines compete with humans? This is similar to the industrial revolution, when manual labor was replaced by machines - but in the creative field, it was long believed that machines could not replace creativity. Now that myth has been debunked, and the question is whether we value human creativity for its own sake, or only the result. Many agree that what is valuable in art is precisely human experience, emotion, and the author's history - things that AI does not have. If society loses sight of this value, the motivation for self-expression may decline.

It is important for creative individuals to feel that their work is in demand and unique. What happens when a schoolchild uses a neural network to produce an image that is no worse than that of an artist who has “spent decades developing their skills”? The latter may experience an existential crisis: why did I try so hard if my skill is no longer exclusive? This situation has been compared online to a social parable: art used to be like hunting - a craft practiced by select “hunters” (talented artists, musicians) who were admired, but now the “prey” (beautiful images, music) can be factory-produced, and yesterday's hunters have become ordinary farm workers. The social status of the creator as a special hero, a pioneer, is disappearing. It is not surprising that some creative people admit that they feel a loss of meaning: they say that they used to paint and receive recognition, but now anyone can generate something similar and the public's attention is scattered. Moreover, the public begins to suspect that any work of art has been generated. An artist posts a magnificent painting, and the comments say, “Wasn't this done by a neural network?” This also undermines motivation: if your authorial style can be confused with a soulless algorithm, how can you assert your individuality? As a result, there is a risk that some talented people will become disillusioned and abandon their creative pursuits or switch to doing it as a hobby, without pursuing a professional career. This is especially true for the middle tier - those authors who are very good, but not geniuses. Roughly speaking, the top 1% of artists will still be recognized (their name is a brand), but the middle 50% risk losing their audience, work, and motivation if nothing changes. The ethical side here is society's responsibility to support the value of creative work and not let it be reduced to nothing in the pursuit of cheap content.

In the long term, the audience will be faced with the question: what to believe and what to consider authentic art? If AI learns to accurately imitate any style, the line between original and copied will become blurred. We are already seeing some curious cases: on Reddit forums for artists, people post drawings, and moderators ban them, thinking that they are the work of a neural network, because the style is so perfect or, conversely, because there are some “artifacts” of generation (although the author is a real person who simply draws that way). This leads to mistrust of visual information. Perhaps new methods of authenticity verification will be created (for example, cryptographic tags “drawn by a human”), which is strange in itself - a person will have to prove that they are not a machine. Philosophically, this raises the issue of the uniqueness of human experience. As long as we value creativity based on the idea that behind it lies a soul, a personality, experiences, art serves as a conduit for this. If society suddenly says, “We don't care who made it, as long as it's impressive,” a change in values is inevitable. There is an opinion that this will not happen, and that “connection with people” will remain the key to meaning in art. Many well-known figures (such as Rick Rubin) emphasize: “Art is valuable for its humanity, its soul. Without it, it is an empty shell.” But if consumers cease to distinguish this soul... ethically, we will find ourselves in a very strange world where creativity will lose its deeper meaning, becoming merely a stimulant for the senses.

Thus, the ethical challenge of the era of hyper-accessible creativity is not to lose respect for the human element in art and creativity. It is important to find a balance between using machine creativity and preserving space for human self-expression. Otherwise, we risk demotivating entire generations of potential artists, writers, and musicians. After all, if their work is “unnecessary” (because there is an algorithm), then we will become culturally and spiritually impoverished. Fortunately, there is currently an awareness of this problem - people are talking about it, arguing about it, and coming up with rules (for example, requiring disclosure of AI use in competition entries). Perhaps in the future, the status of “handmade” in creative work will even become a kind of mark of quality, just as handcrafted goods are valued today.

How to preserve the value of human creativity

Faced with all these changes, professional creators have to rethink their role and look for new approaches. However, there is a way out of any crisis. Several strategies are already emerging that help artists, designers, and musicians preserve the value of their work and even thrive in the new conditions:

One obvious way is to emphasize that your work is handmade, individual, and soulful. In a world where 95% of content is automatically produced, manual labor is becoming a rarity and a luxury. It's like in the world of objects: millions of identical souvenirs are mass-produced, but exclusive handmade items are still valued more highly. If a creative professional openly states that they do not use templates or AI, but work out every detail personally, this can become a premium marker. Quality-oriented customers and audiences are willing to pay more for uniqueness and authenticity. It is no coincidence that handmade items sell for hundreds of dollars on handmade platforms such as Etsy - people pay for exclusivity and the craftsman's time. By transferring this philosophy to digital creativity, you can position your services as “boutique” versus “fast food.” For example, a designer can limit the number of projects and do each one “turnkey” from scratch, an artist can offer originals rather than just digital copies, and a musician can release a limited series of physical copies of an album with autographs. All of this creates scarcity and value. This strategy works if you have already established yourself and there is a segment that values quality. On the other hand, the mass market may be left behind - but that's okay, let AI serve the mass market. An important nuance: you need to convey to the public the value of handcrafted work. The educational mission falls on the shoulders of professionals: to explain to customers why a $500 logo is better than a $5 template - because it reflects their unique brand, takes strategy into account, and is not just a pretty picture. The same applies to other areas: custom ideas and an individual approach are what sell in the premium segment.

Automated tools are good at typical tasks, but they are not yet capable of strategic thinking and deep conceptual problem solving. Therefore, professionals can shift their focus from simple content creation to consulting, ideology, and comprehensive solutions. In design, for example, instead of competing with Canva in creating one-off banners, a studio can sell a service for developing a brand strategy and visual identity for a company, including audience research, positioning, etc. This is something that a template cannot do; it requires human experience and intelligence. The human factor - in a good way - becomes an asset: the ability to ask the right questions, understand business objectives, and come up with non-standard concepts. Machine intelligence operates with already known combinations, while humans can come in from the outside and create new meaning. Many agencies already position themselves this way: we are not about “drawing a picture,” but about solving your communication tasks. Clients who appreciate this immediately understand the difference -they pay for expertise and creative thinking, not for an hour of work in Photoshop. Confirming this trend, experts advise: “Design studios need to rethink their value proposition, emphasizing creative thinking, a human approach, and unique ideas that set them apart from soulless templates.” In other words, the evolution of a professional is to become not just an executor, but a partner, advisor, and creative director for the client.

Fighting technology is useless - as they say, “the genie is already out of the bottle.” Instead of complete denial, many forward-thinking creators are choosing to collaborate with AI. This means using the same neural networks and constructors as auxiliary tools, but not relying on them completely. Research shows that the combination of “experienced person + AI” can produce excellent results: the neural network generates basic ideas or drafts, and a trained artist polishes them to perfection, adding variety and novelty that are not available to a template. For example, an artist can use Midjourney to sketch dozens of compositions, select an interesting one, and then manually redraw it, improving it and adding individuality. This approach saves time on rough work but retains authorial control. Many concept artists in game development already do this - instead of fearing that “AI will take their jobs,” they have mastered these tools and become twice as productive, while the final art still has their style. It's similar in music: algorithms can generate a rhythmic pattern or melody, but the musician adds nuance and expression. In writing, GPT will produce a draft of an idea, and the writer will polish it and add tone. In this way, the professional remains the director of the process, using AI as a “smart brush” or “keyboard.” Of course, this requires constant learning and retraining, but creative people are already inclined to do so. The main thing is not to try to compete with the machine in the speed of producing typical content (where humans will lose), but to combine the strengths of both. This strategy allows you to increase efficiency and offer a new quality that cannot be achieved by purely mechanical means. In fact, this is a shift in roles: from “performer-craftsman” to “conductor, curator” of creativity, where the orchestra includes neural networks, manual techniques, and anything else.

Another part of the survival strategy is to explain the value of creativity to society. Professionals can take on the role of educators: through blogs, speeches, and case studies, they can show the difference between deep work and superficial craftsmanship. If the public learns to “hear” the author's voice and distinguish quality content, it will seek it out. Many communities are already fulfilling this mission to some extent: they publish exposés of low-quality templates (for example, they point out that template logos often contain hidden plagiarism or technical defects, or that websites with free themes have security and optimization issues). In other words, we need to arm our clients with quality criteria. Then cheapness will cease to be the only argument. Of course, you won't be able to convince everyone, but you can cultivate your own segment of connoisseurs. This is similar to how, for example, the culture of craft brewing or designer fashion is developing: in parallel with the mass market, a stratum of people is forming who understand and are willing to pay for the best. Something similar is possible in creative services. Previously, only professionals could “understand,” but now, through online education, even customers can understand that “not everything that looks beautiful at first glance is good design.” If we succeed in raising the visual culture of society, everyone will win - the demand for trashy content will disappear, meaning there will be no point in producing it.

When direct earnings from a product decline, creators devise other ways to monetize it. We are seeing a boom in patrons, donations, and exclusive content for subscribers. In essence, authors are betting on their relationship with their audience: they are not selling the content itself, but access to themselves, to the process, to the community. This is something you definitely won't get from impersonal AI content. Fans voluntarily support their favorite authors with money so that they can continue to create - an emotional connection is at work here. There is also the idea of tokenizing time and attention: for example, issuing NFTs or limited rights to use a work. If the streaming market has devalued a copy, then the original or privileged access can be expensive. Artists have started selling unique sketches, and musicians have started holding private online concerts for paying fans. All of this takes creativity out of the purely commercial sphere and into the realm of high-end experiences and services. Relatively speaking, a painting as an interior decoration can now be cheap (a print from a neural network), but a painting as an object of art, part of the author's personality, is still an expensive commodity. This means that the author needs to shift the emphasis to the latter. Roughly speaking, sell art, not a picture. This is where the artist's story, communication, and charisma become important. Many creators are becoming more active on social media not out of vanity, but to leverage their personal brand to monetize their creativity. We are returning to the ancient model of patronage, only in a democratic form (through crowdfunding, donations, etc.).

Finally, professionals are beginning to unite to protect their interests. Like guilds in the past, there is now talk of legal regulation of AI (for example, the obligation to clearly label AI content, the prohibition of training on content without the author's consent, and compensation). There are already lawsuits from artists against companies that have created image generators based on their paintings. Perhaps in the future, there will be some kind of fund to support the creative class affected by automation (similar to how factory workers were protected by trade unions). So far, this is only a rough outline, but the discussion itself is important. For example, in the UK, the issue of a “digital creative tax” was considered - taxing companies that use AI content, with the proceeds going to a fund to support artists. Although this idea is still a long way from being implemented, the idea here is to make automation more responsible towards people. Professionals should stick together, share their experiences of adaptation, and communicate the value of their professions to society.

In summary, professionals can survive and thrive if they change their perspective: instead of competing with machines, they should provide what machines cannot do. And that is the human factor, creativity with a capital C, emotion, history, uniqueness. Plus, use the machine itself as an assistant, keep up with technology. Then creative people will stay one step ahead: AI can run fast, but it is still humans who build the route. And there will always be those who follow a living leader rather than an algorithm.

What's the bottom line?

We live in an era when creative tools have become truly accessible - seemingly a humanist's dream: creativity for all, without barriers! Paradoxically, this dream has turned into new challenges. The market has been flooded with content, the average value of creative products has declined, professionals have become uncertain, and culture has faced the risk of monotony. The democratization of creativity is a double-edged sword: it destroys old hierarchies, but also blurs the criteria for quality.

However, history teaches us that every such upheaval is not the end of art, but a transformation. When photography appeared, people thought painting would die out, but painting simply changed, and modernist art emerged. When cinema became mainstream, theater did not disappear - it found new forms. Now it is the turn of the digital creative industries to adapt as well. Human creativity is not only a technological phenomenon, but also a spiritual one. Algorithms can simulate style, but not experience. And in the long run, it is the thirst for sincere, unique experiences that will push people to appreciate manual labor and the author's voice. Perhaps creative professions will be reborn: less routine, more search for meaning. And creativity as a skill will become ubiquitous (since everyone can create something, society as a whole will become more creative).

For now, we are at a crossroads. Much depends on the choices made by the creative community and the audience. If we as a society continue to cultivate respect for authorship, support creators with money and attention, and demand ethics from technology, we will find a balance where machines free up artists' time for greatness by taking on the routine tasks. Otherwise, we will face a rather dreary utopian scenario where there is plenty of content but nothing to impress, because everything is derivative and soulless.

But looking at the history of art, the first option seems more likely. People are already gravitating toward niche, unique items: vinyl records are selling again, hand-painted pictures are finding buyers, designers are offering original fonts and illustrations, emphasizing that they are “made by humans.” Handcrafted items are gaining an aura of luxury and trust. Perhaps in a few years, the label “Human-made” on a creative product will become as much a sign of quality as “organic” is today in food. And AI tools will take their place as a convenient but utilitarian way to create a mass of functional things - presentations, template videos, generic music for stores, etc. This is not a bad thing - let automation meet mass demand. But real art, as it has been for hundreds of years, will remain the domain of people who speak to the hearts of others. And its value will not disappear - on the contrary, against a backdrop of a sea of templates, a truly creative product will only gain in status.

Ultimately, creativity as a gift will not disappear. Tools change, market conditions fluctuate, but the human desire to create something new, to express oneself, is eternal. And that is precisely what optimism should be based on. Yes, creators need to be flexible and learn new things, but the soul of art lies within them, not in computers. The hyper-availability of tools is a challenge to accept oneself not as a craftsman, but as a bearer of ideas and meaning. And those who can do this will undoubtedly turn the current “crisis of devaluation” into a new page of creative flourishing. After all, it is not technology that is valued in the end, but what it is filled with - and we are the ones who fill it.

P.S.

I work with animation and motion capture - areas where automation has already become the norm. Generative AI can generate simple dances and transform ordinary videos into videos with characters. But in practice, it is here that the difference between what is generated and what is processed by humans is particularly noticeable.

That's why I consciously choose the opposite path - not to speed up the process, but to bring it to a level that cannot be achieved automatically or through AI. I spend a lot of time (relatively) on cleaning up, because that's what professionalism is all about: not just conveying movement, but making it convincing and alive on a perceptual level, even despite the capture technology. This approach requires experience, observation, and technical and creative discipline, and it is what distinguishes real work from standard “neural network output.”

Dance became a natural focus for me because it is one of the few forms where the boundary between mechanics and personality is particularly visible. Movement immediately reveals quality - where there is an understanding of the mechanics of the body, and where there is simply an algorithm. In this sense, my approach is not a struggle with AI, but a position: to do what AI cannot do.

I don't strive to compete in terms of quantity. I am more drawn to the idea of a professional level, where everything is done in such a way that it cannot be simulated by any algorithms. This is my response to the era of hyper-accessibility - to do what is real, accurate, and calibrated where most choose speed.