The AI Revolution Will Be Televised

For centuries, creative production followed a predictable pattern: ideas were plentiful, but execution required scarce resources or rare skills acquired through years of dedicated practice. A person might envision a stunning landscape painting or compelling story, but lacking technical ability, or perhaps time and dedication, that vision would remain unrealised. The gap between imagination and creation was bridged only by the few who invested thousands of hours mastering their craft or were possessed of outrageous natural talent.

Artificial intelligence has fundamentally altered this equation. Today, anyone with an internet connection can describe an image, story, or piece of music and watch as AI transforms that description into reality within seconds. Or at least until the image reset arrives.  Humanity's response to this miracle? Making ourselves look like anime characters or Mattel style action figures. Taking technology that could terraform Mars and using it primarily to win arguments on X/Twitter. The technical barriers that once limited creative expression are rapidly dissolving, allowing ideas to flow directly from mind to media without the traditional constraints of skill acquisition.  And what’s more with a corresponding and fundamental impact on value.

The Shifting Value Proposition

This separation of ideation from execution raises profound questions about how we value creative work. When a stunning, if derivative, visual can be generated by anyone with the right prompt, does the resulting image carry the same artistic or commercial value as one painstakingly crafted by human hands? The market appears to be schizophrenic in its response. Mass-produced AI content is becoming increasingly commoditised, with stock images, basic copywriting, and generic designs plummeting in value as supply explodes. These things can literally now be produced by anyone. Simultaneously, work showcasing distinctive human vision, cultural depth, and intentional craftsmanship often maintains or even increases in value.

This parallels historical precedents. When photography emerged in the 19th century, many predicted the death of painting. Instead, painting evolved, with movements like Impressionism and abstract art exploring territories that photography couldn't reach. Similarly, handcrafted artisanal goods gained premium status after industrial manufacturing made mass production the norm. In today's creative marketplace, uniquely human elements, original concepts, emotional authenticity, cultural fluency, and intentional meaning, are becoming the primary differentiators of value. The supreme irony being that we've spent centuries trying to remove human error, only to discover that our imperfections might be our most valuable asset. Soon we'll pay extra for art with smudges and typos just to prove a human made it.  Or will the AI start to manage this too?

The Experience Paradox or "Sorry Kid, the Robot Took Your Terrible First Job"

Perhaps more concerning than the impact on creative value is the disruption to career development pathways. Traditionally, junior employees cut their teeth on relatively routine tasks, producing straightforward presentations, writing basic reports, or creating simple graphics. As well as making the tea.

These activities provided mostly essential opportunities to develop professional judgement and domain knowledge. As AI increasingly handles these foundational tasks, a troubling question emerges: how do early-career professionals gain experience when their traditional entry points are automated? This "experience paradox" threatens the pipeline of talent development that organizations have relied upon for generations.

"We're removing the bottom rungs from the career ladder," warns workforce researcher Michael Chen. "Without clear pathways for skill development, we risk creating an unbridgeable gap between education and advanced professional roles."

Forward-thinking organizations are responding by reimagining entry-level positions. Rather than eliminating junior roles, they're transforming them into AI collaboration positions where employees learn to direct, enhance, and quality-check AI outputs. This shift requires new forms of apprenticeship that teach not just technical skills but also the nuanced judgment needed to effectively partner with artificial intelligence.  And we will always need the tea and coffee run.  Mine’s a flat white by the way…..

The Emerging AI Economy

As with previous technological revolutions, AI isn't simply eliminating jobs, any more than the computer or the spinning jenny did.  In fact it's creating new categories of work that couldn't have existed before. A number of distinctive roles are taking shape in the AI economy:

• AI trainers and evaluators who refine system outputs and address biases

• Prompt engineers who craft instructions that yield optimal results from AI systems

• AI ethicists and governance specialists ensuring responsible deployment and use and trying to prevent the rise of Skynet or the Matrix

• Human-AI collaboration experts who maximize complementary capabilities

• Experience designers creating meaningful interactions between humans and AI systems

Perhaps most intriguing is the rise of "augmented creativity" professionals, individuals who use AI to explore creative possibilities they couldn't access alone, then apply human judgment to select and refine the most promising directions. These hybrid creators leverage AI as an expansive collaborative partner rather than a replacement.

A New Power Paradigm: From Land to Production to AI

Throughout history, power has flowed toward those who control the scarce resources most critical to economic production. In agrarian societies, landowners formed the dominant class. The industrial revolution shifted power to those who owned the means of production: factories, machinery, and capital. As we enter the AI era, we face a crucial question: Will power now consolidate around those who own and control the most advanced artificial intelligence systems?

Several possibilities emerge for this new power paradigm:

AI Ownership Concentration

Just as factory ownership concentrated wealth during industrialization, ownership of advanced AI systems and robotics could create a new dominant class. This would represent a continuation of capital concentration patterns, potentially creating unprecedented inequality as productivity becomes increasingly divorced from human labour. The tech bro overlords would then enslave the masses. All hail Elon and Jeff!

Data as the New Land

Perhaps the critical resource isn't the AI itself but the data that trains it. Those who control vast datasets, whether corporations or governments, might become the new power brokers, similar to how land ownership once determined social and economic status.  Here the tech bros will seek access to all data, and IP will be moot if it can be stolen and fed into an AI algorithm which can then produce an even better outcome.

Algorithmic Governance

Power might belong to those who control the algorithms that make increasingly important decisions, not just the hardware or software itself. This could create a new form of influence more subtle than previous power structures, operating through the invisible architecture of automated decision systems whose keys are held by the very few under the guise of commercial secrets, ironically whilst feeding in a stolen IP data set.

Democratised AI Future

Alternatively, and more optimistically, if AI development follows an open-source path and computing resources become widely accessible, we might see a democratisation of these capabilities rather than a concentration. This would represent a departure from historical patterns of resource consolidation.

The policy choices we make around AI governance, intellectual property, data rights, and wealth distribution will significantly shape which of these futures emerges. Without deliberate intervention, the historical pattern suggests power tends to concentrate around whoever controls the scarcest, most critical resource for production.

Two Futures: Utopia vs. Dystopia. Place Your Bets!

The Optimistic Vision: Renaissance 2.0

In the more hopeful scenario, AI catalyses a new creative renaissance. As technical barriers fall, human creativity flourishes in unprecedented ways. People previously locked out of creative production, whether by lack of training, disability, or economic constraints, gain powerful tools for self-expression. The democratisation of execution leads not to creative homogenisation but to an explosion of diverse voices and perspectives. AI becomes the great enabler, with humans focusing on what they do best: generating novel ideas, making meaning, and forming emotional connections. Or making cat videos and doll avatars; whatever gets you through the night.

In this future, work evolves to emphasise distinctly human capabilities. Routine cognitive labour is largely automated, freeing people to concentrate on complex judgment, ethical reasoning, cultural insight, and interpersonal collaboration. Education systems adapt to prioritise these uniquely human strengths alongside technological fluency. New forms of creative and intellectual property emerge, with frameworks that appropriately value both human direction and AI contribution. The economic benefits of AI productivity are broadly shared, creating opportunities for creative entrepreneurship and reducing working hours while maintaining living standards.

Most importantly, in this optimistic vision, ownership and benefits of AI systems are widely distributed rather than tightly concentrated. Open-source models, public AI infrastructure, and universal basic income funded by automation productivity gains ensure that AI becomes a broadly shared resource rather than a tool for power concentration. It sounds a rather wonderful future, but….

The Pessimistic Vision: Creative Collapse

The darker possibility is less encouraging. As AI-generated content floods every channel, attention becomes the scarcest resource in a sea of algorithmic production and even 15 minutes might seem long to generation TikTok. Creative markets collapse under the weight of infinite supply, with human creators unable to compete with the speed and cost-efficiency of artificial intelligence. Cultural expression grows increasingly derivative as AI systems trained on existing works generate endless variations that technically avoid copyright infringement while adding little genuine novelty. The unique perspectives that emerge from lived human experience are drowned out by synthetic approximations optimized for engagement metrics. And we all copy each other as the herd instinct burns energy and time to recreate the same copycat stuff.

In this scenario, organisations eliminate rather than transform entry-level positions, creating a missing path in professional development. Without clear pathways to gain experience, young professionals struggle to develop the expertise needed for advanced roles. Economic polarisation intensifies between those who control AI systems and those whose skills have been automated. Power becomes increasingly concentrated in the hands of "AI aristocrats" who own the most advanced systems and the data they require. The tech bro overlord era creates a society more stratified than the industrial age, as the ownership of digital means of production becomes vanishingly rare while their productive capacity grows exponentially. A small techno-elite effectively owns the engines of cultural and economic production, while the vast majority become dependent consumers of AI-generated content and services. And perhaps worse still we are enslaved by creating the latest trend versions of ourselves for our Facebook or LinkedIn profiles, burning energy and wasting our lives.

"We risk creating a world where creativity is abundant but meaning is scarce," warns cultural critic Julian Winters. "When everything can be produced instantly and without effort, we may lose the connection between creative work and human growth that gives art its deeper significance."  But maybe it doesn’t matter if you get a few endorphin driving clicks from your friends and colleagues for your latest parody image, video or computer game.

Navigation Through Transformation or "Policy Recommendations No One Will Follow Until It's Too Late"

As with previous technological revolutions, the ultimate impact of AI on creativity and work will be determined not by the technology itself but by the social, economic, and policy choices we make around it. The industrial revolution prompted child labour laws, public education, and eventually the weekend. The digital revolution sparked new intellectual property frameworks and privacy regulations.

The AI revolution similarly requires thoughtful adaptation of our institutions. Educational approaches need reimagining to prepare students for collaboration with intelligent systems. Economic policies must address the redistribution of productivity gains. Cultural and intellectual property frameworks require updating to appropriately value human contribution in an age of algorithmic production. Perhaps most critically, we need governance structures that prevent extreme concentration of AI capabilities in a few hands and ensure these powerful tools serve broader social interests. Just as antitrust legislation addressed industrial monopolies and land reform reconfigured agricultural power structures, we may need new approaches to ensure AI becomes a democratising rather than stratifying force.

Most importantly, we need ongoing dialogue about what aspects of creativity and work we consider essentially human and worth preserving, even when AI offers more efficient alternatives. By making these choices deliberately rather than defaulting to technological determinism, we can shape an AI future that enhances rather than diminishes human creative potential. The separation of ideation from execution represents both liberation and challenge. How we navigate this transformation, and who ultimately controls its key technologies, will determine whether AI becomes the greatest creative catalyst in human history or a force that undermines the very foundations of creative value and economic opportunity. Or most likely, we'll use it to generate endless variations of cats doing crazy stuff or dachshunds in little jumpers while arguing about whether the AI is conscious yet. Progress!

Can we imagine Picasso turning in his grave or would he simply be excited by the creative possibilities?  

I am not sure….but in the meantime get a load of my new AI cat video….Mr Mittens is riding a motorbike! And look at Bunion’s little jumper!