My Position on AI

A public record of how I use AI in my work — which disciplines it touches, which it doesn't, and where the line sits between assistance and generation. Although I experiment with all creative tools at my disposal including AI, I prefer my personal creative output to come from my hands, brain, and vision alone, with AI used primarily as an assistant and production accelerant, taking on mechanical and process-based tasks that don't require a creative mind or human aesthetic. In the cases I do use generative imaging or video tools, it's either a) for previsualization and exploration before any final assets are created, b) a personal creative experiment, clearly and publicly disclosed, or c) a specifically-commissioned and clearly-disclosed job for a client.

The Practice

Six disciplines. What's real, not aspirational — where AI assists, and where the line is.

Design — brand & web

AffinityFigmaClaudeClaude Code
AI assists with

File management, document sync, version control, project management.

Does not do — the line

Visual design or generated imagery.

Software — web & Apple apps

React / Vite / TailwindXcode / Apple APIsClaude CodeCodex
AI assists with

Code assistance, code reviews, architectural reviews.

Does not do — the line

Never engineers unassisted. Application architecture, design, and every decision stay human — AI reviews architecture, it never decides it.

Writing — book, essays, workshop

ScrivenerWordClaudeClaude Code
AI assists with

Read-only editorial reviews, generating manual worklists, checking continuity and story arc across the entire manuscript.

Does not do — the line

Write any copy directly, or generate story or writing ideas.

Music

Logic ProAbleton LiveClaude Code
AI assists with

Project management, asset version control.

Does not do — the line

No generative AI whatsoever.

Video

Final Cut ProMotionBlenderClaude CodeGoogle Veo
AI assists with

Read-only timeline reviews, asset replacement on the timeline, previz-to-final version control — and, on specific projects only, asset generation.

Does not do — the line

Generative video used only where clearly disclosed. Never used for standalone video projects, single clips only.

Photography

AffinityPixelmator ProClaude Code
AI assists with

File and asset management.

Does not do — the line

Any creative assistance whatsoever.

The Manifesto

We're not afraid of the machine.We understand it well enough to direct it.

Creativity isn't a product — it's a process.It can be accelerated, extended, and scaled, but never replaced. The judgment at its center — the call about what's good, and why — is irreducibly ours.

We know the difference between using a tool and designing a system.The output of the systems we build is unambiguously ours, because the direction, the standards, and the final call were ours.

We will not automate away apprenticeship — we'll redesign it.The craft must be taught. The judgment must be earned — by us, and by whoever comes next.

Some things are not for optimizing.Grief. Tenderness. Moral complexity. The conversation in the room when a client is afraid but hasn't said so. That's the center of what it means to make something that matters.

We're curious, not afraid.The question a designer has always asked: what can I make with this that I couldn't make before?

We're not here to be replaced. We're here to lead.

Make something that could only have come from you.

Make something that couldn't have been made without the machine.

Make something the machine couldn't have made without you.

Make something worth making.