I’ll be honest — I would usually run any piece I write through ChatGPT first, to check and refine the text. This time, I’m not.
Like many of you, I’ve been pondering what the AI future really holds. No one disputes there will be huge wins — financial, medical, educational — but what will it do to human culture?
As a designer of many years, I was curious to see how imagery might be manipulated, so I ran a small test this summer and primed AI with pages of information about my new Geranium Leaf & Thyme fragrance and asked it to re-create the image similar to the one from our photoshoot.
The result? It’s close but it’s a classically airbrushed, slightly saccharine offering — the sort of synthetic perfection we’ve come to expect.
Worse still, I’ve since watched this aesthetic roll out into a more worrying trend: creating boxed, doll-like selfies of ourselves or our homes filtered through a Beatrix-Potter chocolate box lens.
These engines scrape the internet for content — regardless of copyright — to build their own “versions” at will. The same process is happening everywhere: in music, writing, and film.
When I asked AI about the growing counter-culture against it, it replied:
“…a pushback against the ubiquity and potential harms of AI, emphasizing human authenticity, analogue experiences, ethical concerns, and creative resistance…”
Too true, my friend. Human authenticity. That’s worth something to me.
Trends have always mirrored what’s going on socially, globally, economically, politically, and scientifically. The inevitable backlash against artificial intelligence will be profound — and, I think, the best thing that could have happened to us.
#MadeByHumans might be a good starting point. We’ll crave imperfection again — maker’s marks, unique pieces, vintage treasures, handmade touches, and authentic materials. Analogue “live” experiences. Offline spaces. Phone-free gigs. It’s reminiscent of the “organic” revolution that swept through two decades ago.
Trust me, I’m no Luddite — I’ve owned more Apple merch than I care to admit — but I can see a real positive outcome here. The more immersed we become in tech, the greater our need to honour our roots and seek out the alternative.
Take our vintage glass diffuser bottles, for example. Most were made nearly a century ago, cut by hand during the last great Industrial Revolution. Now, more than ever, they speak volumes about human craft and skill.
How long does it take to become a potter? A lawyer? A musician? Years. AI will do it in a fraction of the time. But that’s exactly why the human touch will matter more than ever.
