The Infinite Palette: How AI Can Enhance and Empower Creators
Not every tool is a threat.
To say that AI spells the end of art is to forget what art has always done: adapt. The quill gave way to the press. The easel gave way to the lens. The silent film gave way to sound, then color, then code. And each time, the true artist did not vanish—they evolved.
So too with this moment—I hope.
AI, for all its unnerving potential, also offers something extraordinary: an infinite palette. Never before has a lone creator had access to so much power. A bedroom filmmaker can now render worlds that once required studio lots. A musician can generate ambient orchestras to score their indie release. A writer can use AI to outline a trilogy in the time it once took to scribble a character sketch.
As I’ve stated, we are facing a reckoning. But what we do with that reckoning is what ultimately decides where we go next. There is a theory of western civilization that says we are set in a pattern of cycles, four specific turnings—as described by historians Neil Howe and William Strauss in their book The Fourth Turning—and in that fourth turning civilization faces a series of cataphoric events that lead to an ultimatum… society must choose to either adapt and prosper, or surrender to ruin.
It is a ‘dark night of the soul’ moment for all western civilization, these fourth turnings, and the outcome really is life or death… not for a person, but for a people. And once again, the empowering yet terrifying truth is that ultimately it is a choice, every cycle, for the people to either get it together and rise up or scatter, submit, and die. Interestingly enough, according to the timeline of this historical theory, we are currently near the end of our cycle’s fourth turning.
So perhaps the choices we make with AI will have larger implications than we think.
There are artists today who are not enslaved to the tool but have learned to wield it. Not as a replacement for inspiration—but as a multiplier. A great idea remains irreplaceable. But now that idea can be amplified, visualized, prototyped, tested, and shared—all without needing corporate permission or a million-dollar advance.
Perhaps one of the greatest changes this technological advance has unlocked is the power of decentralization.
Hollywood once held the keys to production quality. That lock has now been picked. Which means the next masterpiece may not come from a legacy studio or a top agent’s desk. It may come from a garage in Galveston or a barn in Montana—from someone who no longer needs to ask for permission to create something beautiful.
Of course, the tool cuts both ways. Mediocrity will multiply alongside mastery. For every great idea that makes its way onto a platform there will inevitably be a hundred terrible ideas budding up beside it. But perhaps that’s the price of creative freedom. The point is not to stop the flood—it’s to build something worthy enough to rise above it. That could lead me into a rant on the glories of meritocracy and free markets, but I won’t do that here.
The positive point of this perspective is that with every great threat comes great opportunity. The discovery of fire meant we could either burn down our homes or find safe ways to warm them. Blades opened the door to gruesome warfare and life-saving surgeries. I’m sure you’ve heard countless other metaphors on how something dangerous can be used for good, so I’ll simply end by saying this: as artists and creators, it is now our duty to find the best ways we can wield this magical power of AI.
Next time: The Return of Presence – What Becomes Valuable in the Age of Infinite Content
