Are we already over-reliant on AI?
- lukefoylan
- 22 minutes ago
- 4 min read
We’re rapidly moving into an age where AI acts as a personal assistant to cover menial tasks, the stuff we know we can do but don’t have to, because we know that AI can handle it much faster – thus freeing up more time for us to complete the less menial tasks (and scroll TikTok).
We’re all guilty of it. I could have easily used Chat-GPT to write this blog post, but that contradicts the nature of the exact point we’re trying to get across.
Entrepreneurs across the globe are harnessing the immeasurable power of the new ‘big thing’ by plastering a slick user interface across the face of it, giving it a pastel colour scheme and a fancy name, then sending it out into the world. Why wouldn’t we use it? It’s like choosing to count on an abacus when you have a calculator sat on your desktop. Don’t get me wrong – these tools aren’t free, and they aren’t cheap either. It amazes me that basic Chat-GPT is completely free, when it is so far from basic it almost feels like you should be reaching into your pocket to use it.
Undoubtedly, AI has encroached on our industry too – the creative industry has changed so much in the past 5 years; it feels like it’s impossible to keep up with. Graphic designers are panicking that generative AI will take their job because someone can sit at their laptop in their underpants and feed a prompt into an engine, thus revealing a company logo before their eyes in a matter of seconds.
But it’s not as simple as that.
Anyone that has had a vision for their business knows how they want it to look (and feel), and something as simple as a logo design can be incredibly hard to chisel precisely how you want it to look. AI won’t give you that – at least not yet. Gen AI, from a graphic design perspective, feels very much like ‘you’ll take what you’re given’ – and anyone that has dealt with clients knows that this isn’t how it works.
There are AI engines out there that will generate you an explainer video based on the prompt you feed into it. It will get the text right, and it will roughly follow what you tell it to do. But you already know what you want. The software you’re communicating with doesn’t – it knows what you tell it and it will fill in the gaps with imagery inspired by explainer videos it has seen across the web.
This is where the Human vs. AI debate comes into play.
AI powered Accountancy software can nail your tax self-assessment because the rules set by HMRC are in place, they are rigid and it understands them. But there are no rigid rules in the creative industry (besides the ever-looming branding guidelines and semi-impossible deadlines). So, letting AI run free with your marketing material means you can end up with a cheap version of something you didn’t really want (sounds like Amazon Prime Day). If you’re ok with that then that’s great, you’ve saved a chunk of your marketing budget and your boss will be happy. But for companies that know exactly what they want, you will struggle to find a piece of software that isn’t directly controlled by a human that can successfully do this for you.
This is why the panic has settled over the last year or so. People in the creative industry have learned that AI isn’t here to take over, it’s here to help. You as the human are in complete control of the end product – you can’t afford to leave anything to chance when you have a Communications Officer breathing over your shoulder, who has the Head of Marketing breathing over their shoulder, who has the Managing Director breathing over theirs. It needs to be right, just like you envisioned, no matter how many iterations and amendments you need to hammer out before the deadline.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is, it doesn’t have to be a case of Human vs. AI; it can be Human + AI. We can harness the powers of both. One is quicker and more resourceful, the other is more creative, empathetic and, well, human.
The debate reminds me of a scene from the film Good Will Hunting, where we see Robin Williams’ character begin to understand Matt Damon’s genius, telling him “You’re an orphan, right? You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been – how you feel, who you are – because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally, I don’t give a sh** about all that, because you know what? I can’t learn anything from you that I can’t read in some f***in’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated.”
He goes on to say “You know a lot of things. But you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. You’ve never seen that.”
The reference I’m making here points to the friction between someone who has lived and someone who has read about life. Someone who has experienced and understands life as a human versus someone who has experienced most things second-hand.
So, coming back to the purpose of this post, maybe we have become overly-reliant on AI, but no more than we have become overly-reliant on the internet in general. Or social media for that matter. If you were to take it away, many businesses would crumble quicker than you can say ‘I told you so’. But it’s not going anywhere. As long as we use AI to supplement as opposed to putting all our eggs into one digital basket, we can safely go about our business without worrying about the ‘what ifs.’
Disclaimer… I used Chat-GPT to extract the Good Will Hunting dialogue. See, we can get along.
Author: Luke Foylan
24/10/25
Voodoo Animation