10/15/2026
Guys, I’m trying to come to terms with AI.
A few years ago I read a bunch of books on the Singularity. It started with a Wait But Why blog post, then I gobbled up as much info as I could. It’s probably dated by now, but “Our Final Invention” by James Barrat was a great read. My takeaway then was that, as terrifying as it sounded, it was probably decades off in the distance.
Turns out it was less than 5.
As a creative, I’ve approached AI with the same type of hesitation I would use if someone asked me to smell milk of a questionable vintage. Curious, sure, but definitely not optimistic. I’ll probably take a whiff, but don’t get mad when I’m disgusted.
Of course, the flip side of all this is that I love tools. And like all tools, it can be scary to use them until you get comfortable with how they work, but once you do, it opens up new realms in your creative pursuits, in addition to improving workflow and speeding up processes.
I just had SketchUp’s AI render tool add some realism (is it real??) to this dining table I’ve been developing, and I was blown away at how quickly it got here. My prompt was minimal- “Render this dining table with a single slab of walnut for the top, with some exciting grain patterns showing, smooth walnut for the legs, and blackened steel tube for the stretchers connecting the legs. The table should be on a soft white photo studio backdrop”
I’m honestly pretty impressed with the result.
Previously, I would have spent hours adding materials to all the surfaces, then rendering it with Chaos/Vray, and it still wouldn’t have looked this good. Hours down to seconds, on basically my first try.
I’m still wrestling with the data usage aspect of all this computing power. And all gross deepfake/misinformation content creation is terrifying. It’s getting harder and harder to separate real from fake. And I certainly don’t put any weight in AI as an artist by itself.
But is there any room for AI as a tool in the creative space? What’s everyone’s thoughts on this?
