I sometimes joke that ChatGPT is my newest employee.
Some people laugh.
Others become uncomfortable.
Both reactions miss the point.
I'm not suggesting that artificial intelligence is a person. Far from it. I'm using a metaphor to describe the role it plays in my work.
If an employee or contractor designs a logo, writes copy, or prepares a presentation, I'll gladly tell people they worked on it. They deserve credit for their contribution.
But no one would say the work exists apart from Inkling.
It was created within our process, guided by our standards, reviewed through our judgment, and ultimately delivered under our name.
The responsibility remains ours.
That's how I think about artificial intelligence: it contributes. It doesn't direct, decide, or accept responsibility.
I do.
That distinction drives how I think about AI
From Fear to a Better Question
Like many designers, I'll admit that AI made me nervous.
It still does sometimes.
Every week seems to bring another headline announcing that designers, writers, illustrators, and programmers are about to become obsolete. Every new model appears more capable than the last.
I found myself asking the same question everyone else was asking.
Will AI replace me?
Then I came across an observation that quietly changed my thinking.
The idea was simple: AI won't make great designers irrelevant. It will make them more effective.
Whether that's entirely true remains to be seen. Technology has a way of surprising us.
This common thought also prompted me to ask a much better question.
Instead of asking whether AI would replace me, I began asking a different question.
What part of my work is uniquely human?
The answer to question has shaped so much since.
My Work Has Changed
The more I've used AI, the more I've realized it isn't replacing my creativity.
It's changing where my creativity matters. I still design, write, and solve problems.
But increasingly, my work looks less like producing every artifact from scratch and more like directing the process that produces them.
- I ask the questions
- I define the need
- I evaluate the ideas
- I reject the mediocre
- I refine the promising
- I decide what serves people
In other words, I spend less time making everything myself and more time exercising judgment.
Ironically, AI hasn't diminished the value of experience.
It's increased it.
Because AI can generate possibilities.
But only people can decide which possibilities deserve to become reality.
AI Has Become One of My Favorite Thinking Partners
One of the biggest surprises has nothing to do with design.
It's how AI has changed the way I think.
When I began writing what would eventually become the Inkling Operating System, I wasn't looking for someone—or something—to tell me what to believe.
Quite the opposite.
I already had convictions that had been forming for years. What I lacked wasn't ideas.
It was clarity.
As I worked through draft after draft, I'd often stop and say, "That's close... but that's not what I mean." Then I'd rewrite it. Or explain it. Or argue with it.
And something interesting began to happen.
The more I corrected the writing, the more clearly I understood my own thinking.
Eventually the words began sounding like me. Artificial intelligence didn't give me a philosophy. It helped me articulate one. The distinction matters.
AI can sharpen thinking, but it cannot replace it.
Sometimes the greatest value of a conversation isn't that someone gives you the answer. It's that they force you to explain why your first answer wasn't quite right.
The Difference Between Exploration and Decision
One of the most practical ways I use AI is during exploration.
Recently I entered a logo design competition. I already knew the concept I wanted to communicate. What I didn't know was exactly what it should look like. So I asked AI to help me explore. Not design. Explore.
After a great deal of back-and-forth art direction, it finally produced something interesting. Not something finished, something useful.
From there, I opened my design software and began doing what designers have always done. I redrew it.
- Adjusted proportions.
- Changed relationships.
- Removed distractions.
- Refined details.
- Solved problems.
Every meaningful design decision remained mine. And that's when I realized something.
AI is remarkably good at generating possibilities. It is remarkably poor at deciding which possibility best serves another human being.
That's still my responsibility. And I suspect it always will be.
Knowing When to Stop
AI users eventually discover an unexpected skill: knowing when to stop asking AI for another version.
Sometimes another prompt produces something better. Sometimes it produces twenty more versions that are only slightly different from the last.
I've learned there's a point where continuing to prompt becomes less productive than opening my design software and solving the problem myself.
Experience teaches you where that point is.
Ironically, the better I become as a designer and the more I get to know AI, the sooner I recognize it. The goal isn't to get AI to produce a perfect answer. The goal is to know when it has become a useful starting point.
That's a subtle difference.
But it's the difference between using AI as a creative assistant and expecting it to become the creative director.
AI Is Excellent at Some Things
I happily ask AI to do things I probably wouldn't spend enough time doing otherwise.
- Research.
- SEO recommendations.
- Organizing information.
- Thinking of different ways to shorten a paragraph.
- Summarizing long documents.
- Brainstorming possibilities.
- Finding patterns across large amounts of information.
These are wonderful uses for a powerful tool.
Not because they eliminate work. But because they remove friction.
They free me to spend more time where human judgment creates the greatest value. That's stewardship.
Stewardship isn't doing everything yourself. It's using every appropriate tool wisely in service of the people you're trying to help.
Why Human Responsibility Matters
By now, you may have noticed that I keep returning to the same idea.
Responsibility.
No matter how capable our tools become, they never relieve us of the responsibility to use them wisely. For me, that conviction isn't simply a professional preference. It's rooted in how I understand what it means to be human.
My understanding of creativity begins with a biblical understanding of humanity. I believe people are made in the image of God.
That doesn't mean we're all artists or designers. It means we possess something no technology ever will: personhood.
- We can reason.
- We can love.
- We can exercise conscience.
- We can accept responsibility for our actions.
- We can choose to serve others rather than ourselves.
Artificial intelligence can imitate many things remarkably well.
- It can imitate language.
- It can imitate styles.
- It can imitate patterns.
But imitation and personhood are not the same thing. AI doesn't bear moral responsibility for the words it generates.
- It doesn't feel the weight of telling the truth.
- It doesn't experience conviction when it has done wrong.
- It doesn't love the client sitting across the table, wondering if their business will survive another year.
- It doesn't care whether a child understands the story being illustrated.
- It doesn't lose sleep over whether a decision honored another person's trust.
People do.
That's why I don't believe AI changes what it means to be human. If anything, it reveals which parts of our humanity were always the most valuable.
Should We Use AI for Everything?
One of the temptations of every new technology is to believe that because it can do something, it should.
History suggests otherwise: Power has always required wisdom. Knowledge has always required discernment. Ability has always required character.
Artificial intelligence is no exception.
In many ways, AI has made me more aware of my own responsibility, not less.
- Every prompt is a decision.
- Every edit is a decision.
- Every image I approve.
- Every paragraph I publish.
- Every recommendation I accept or reject.
Those are all acts of judgment. The software can assist me, but tt cannot relieve me of the responsibility to decide wisely. And honestly, I wouldn't want it to.
Some work isn't valuable only because of what it produces.
Some work is valuable because of what it produces in us.
That's one reason I don't outsource everything.
- I use AI to research.
- I use it to brainstorm.
- I use it to organize information and explore ideas.
But there are some kinds of work I intentionally keep for myself.
Not because AI couldn't produce an answer.
Because the process itself matters.
I don't want AI to study Scripture for me because the purpose of Bible study isn't merely to prepare a lesson. It's to know God more deeply and to allow His Word to shape me before I ever teach someone else.
In the same way, I don't want to become so dependent on AI that I stop exercising the abilities I've been called to steward and have worked hard to cultivate.
That's not a technology issue.
It's a discipline issue.
Every powerful tool makes certain tasks easier. That's a gift. But if I'm not careful, convenience can quietly replace discipline. And when discipline disappears, growth often disappears with it.
The goal isn't to prove I can work without AI. The goal is to ensure I never become unable to work without it. A tool should extend my abilities, not replace them.
Because the abilities themselves are part of what I've been entrusted to steward.
Every generation inherits new tools.
The tools change. The responsibility doesn't.
The more powerful our tools become, the more important human wisdom becomes. Technology has never relieved humanity of its responsibility.
