Fifth in a series designed to show creatives opportunities with clients that are good for people and the planet
These lies are like snuggling with a comfort blanket. They make us feel safe when we are not. They are seductive. And they are dangerous.
Comfort Lie One
“AI doesn’t have feelings, so it can’t do deep-feeling work.”
That’s the lie. Here’s the truth underneath: AI is already getting masterfully good at producing emotional content. Trained on the full catalog of human imagery and fiction — with all our collective grief and joy — AI is already generating scenes that move us, headlines that ache, and designs that exude raw emotion.
Feeling-as-material is becoming just another commodity machines create.
Comfort Lie Two
“Work by real human hands will increase in value.”
This is the next lie. This mindset belongs to the wagon-wheel makers right after the assembly line spun up. Yes, a tiny fraction of wealthy purists will pay a premium for “human-made” artifacts. But it will not be enough to sustain an entire industry of working creative professionals.
When efficiency scales, only hobbyists get to keep creating for the sake of love alone.
Anything digital can be shaped and originated by AI. Unlike previous technological shifts, AI touches every digital activity, meaning it touches every job, every profession, blue collar and white alike. With recent breakthroughs in robotics, the physical world is standing directly in the same path.
Looking for a Comforting Truth
We know a machine can simulate a relationship. It can certainly fool us into trusting it is real.
What it cannot do is be in a real relationship.
An AI can hold your attention, remember your birthday, and encrypt years of conversations. It can flawlessly mimic the gut-wrenching physical markers of shame. But it can’t feel it.
True trust is built on biological, physical, and emotional vulnerabilities. It is a currency that only accumulates between people who have actually been through something together over years, not seconds.
AI can simulate the output of empathy. It cannot accumulate the history real empathy is made of.
That’s the comforting truth.
What to Do?
Use the Threat
Use AI in every way possible, now!
My clients are streamlining tasks, accelerating their writing, building strategy, iterating hundreds of package designs, and mapping out films. If a machine can execute your craft in seconds, you must master the machine. Then form teams that take full advantage of the collaboration of team and machine.
Shift from Craft to Strategy
Automation hits functional roles first. If your entire identity is built around execution — drawing the line, typing the copy, tweaking the code — you are standing directly in the path of the storm. Step out of the path and into a group where your humanity shapes the strategy.
Wrap Yourself in Raw Human Currency
Corporate giants are flattening and homogenizing in the never-ending quest for shareholder value. Your currency is now taste, intuition, and the ability to look a client in the eye to navigate messy, complex problems.
The future belongs to creatives who step above the line of execution and into relationship and cultural empathy.
Build Stuff That Can’t Be Franchised
The ultimate shield against automation is community, infrastructure, and real human connection.
Robots will optimize a digital layout or generate the perfect cinematic image. They may even become actors working beside us. They can’t build the physical and emotional rooms where people meet, collaborate, argue, and support one another.
Stop competing on digital output. Start building human-centered ecosystems.
Find What’s True for You
An imaginary moment. Not an impossible one.
A+ for intent isn’t enough anymore.
72 million of us are still waiting.
~
The Work Beneath the Work is available now at tedleonhardt.com/the-work-beneath-the-work
