In my book Poof! The Disappearance of a Writer in the Age of AI, I write about how the release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022 crushed my blogging business and threatened my client work.
What started as a HATE-HATE relationship between me and AI has evolved to a LOVE-HATE or HATE-LOVE relationship depending on the day. I do have to admit that the better I learn to prompt generative AI chatbots, the more easily I am able to produce incredible results in record time.
Suffice it to say, learning to partner with AI is an adventure. I share these hard-won Rules of the Road with you in the hope that they’ll ease your creative journey in this wild new world:
1. Grieve the loss. Don’t pretend.
There’s a lot of pressure to skip over the grief part of our transition to AI and to fully embrace our new reality. “It will help you leave the boring parts of your job behind,” people will tell you enthusiastically.
But what they consider the “boring” parts of the job, I consider the parts that put me into flow. When I spend half an hour trying to come up with the exact right word to make a paragraph leap from the page, I feel a calm I can’t acquire any way else.
It’s true. For many creatives, AI will replace our ability to make a living from doing some of the tasks we actually love, even if others consider these tasks boring or repetitive.
My advice? Don’t let others gaslight you into feeling that the loss doesn’t exist. If you feel pain, express it the way you do best—through your human art.
2. Peel yourself in two.
Art is about authenticity. Using AI to write or create art can feel inauthentic. However, the reality is that you will likely need to use AI tools in your paid creative work, in order to meet the new lightning fast deadlines to turn around work.
Productivity and optimization are the hallmarks of our time. If others are using AI, you’ll need to do so if you want to keep your job. Still, if you’re not careful, doing so could trample your meandering creative heart.
What to do? Peel yourself in two. Use the AI tools to complete your video edits, graphic designs, and marketing materials by day.
But after hours, commit to practicing your art the 100% human way. This will ensure the pilot light of your passion never goes out. Every time you practice your craft the old-fashioned way, you’ll send a love letter to your soul.
3. Seize the first-mover advantage.
Creatives and freelancers are the canaries in the coal mines, having taken the first direct hits to our livelihoods because of AI.
As a result, we are positioned to become the first early adopters. Consider the social pecking order with financiers and business CEOs on top and creatives somewhere (far) below.
Are artists now facing an opportunity to turn things upside down?
A report from Statista shows that professionals who work in marketing and advertising are ahead of peers in other industries in adopting generative AI into their workflows.
By moving immediately to learn about AI and practice with some industry-specific tools, you can gain a significant, marketable edge in your career. You’ll also feel more confident moving around the World 2.0.
And who knows, if creatives seize our first-mover advantage as a collective, we might just seize a spot at the top of the social pecking order where, of course, we rightly belong.
4. Give yourself a promotion.
Once you have a grasp on how AI tools can skyrocket your productivity, you’ll hand AI the more repetitive tasks (even those you love!), so that you can achieve startlingly impressive results in a second flat.
If you are a content marketer, try tools like Jasper + Surfer SEO to select keywords, write content, and score it. If you are a video editor, try Pictory.ai to import images and remove the “umms” and “ahhs” with the press of a button.
You get the idea.
Mastering your industry tools will free you to do more high-level strategy work in your paid job.
5. Charge what you’re worth.
Even though you’re partnering with AI, your clients will still get the benefit of the expertise you’ve developed through years of refining your craft.
Impress this fact on your potential clients. Help them understand that you manage AI as your assistant. Repeat these words: “I will not complete a project using an AI tool the same way as an administrator with no creative skills would using the same tool.”
After all, you are still the artist with five years, ten years, twenty years of experience who knows what a final product should look like and what would constitute a big mistake for a brand.
Now for the great news: You can complete more projects, charging your clients the same as you did before introducing AI into your workflow. Congratulations! You are in a position to scale.
Questions: Did you get any actionable ideas when you read these Rules of the Road? If so, what? Which rule resonated with you most and why?
Learn more about my work at ShanaBurg.com. Order your copy of Poof! The Disappearance of a Writer in the Age of AI. Coming in spring 2025: “Voilá!: How To Thrive as a Creative in an AI World.”