The tool is not the skill
Compulsion loops, board game tariffs, and a definition of happiness (Issue #312)
I came across a story on Medium recently that does something all good essays do (I think): It says the quiet part out loud. And it concerns a topic we’ve discussed from multiple angles here in the Medium Newsletter: what the advent of AI means for people who make things with words, images, sounds, and ideas.
, a design director, photographer, and musician, reflects on conversations with his teammates and the unspoken fear people seem to feel but rarely talk about. “I feel like I need to stay ahead of what AI can do,” a designer said to him recently. “I feel like we need an answer to validate our role with clients as more AI tools become available…”
The teammate in question was already using AI (a lot!) but they were still worried. They felt like they were in a race against a force far more powerful than them.
Sanchez thought to himself, creativity should not feel like a race — that’s not the point, right? As we mentioned in issue #304, “art shouldn’t be driven by effectiveness; it should be driven by expression.” He told his colleague:
“Creative evolution isn’t about mastering every trend. It’s about carrying who you already are into what comes next.”
Instead of trying to speed-race a robot, dig into what you already do well, and use new tools to accentuate that. Remember who you are and why you started in the first place.
“AI isn’t the end of creative work,” Sanchez writes, “It’s another surface to shape. And the people who will shape it aren’t the ones with the most tools. They’re the ones who never lost their voice.”
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🎮 Also today…
- Game designer on the mechanics of digital addictions: “I’ve been in those meetings. Unscrupulous game designers create what they call ‘compulsion loops,’ which are carefully calibrated systems designed to keep players coming back.”
- A lesser-known potential victim of tariffs? Board games, as anthropologist explains (via emails he’s received from board game creators). “The current industry in China evolved over time to its current status and sophistication, that level of expertise and specialized machinery is difficult to create whole-cloth.”
- explains hershelf (pun intended) and why she “would readily drop $100 on a book [she] already owns in two other formats.” (Indran’s bookshelf is not a place to house every book she’s ever read; it’s a “museum” of what she views as collectibles.)
☀️ Your daily dose of practical wisdom
A definition of happiness, via , founding director of the Digital Ethics Center at Yale: the “incremental fulfillment of hopes.”
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