In 1888, Kodak launched its first camera with the line:
“You press the button, we do the rest.”
It was revolutionary because photography was complicated. Cameras, plates, chemicals, processing. Kodak took a lot of that difficulty away.
I managed to catch the tail end of that world. In the 90s, my mum let me convert a small utility room inro my very own darkroom. My mate welded me up a sink frame and I chiseled a hole through 14inches of concrete to get running water through the wall – it was awesome. I loved the smell of the chemicals and seeing my images slowly appear under the red light. It’s pure magic and I recommend everyone try it at least once.
At the same time, I was making pictures on an Amiga 500 with Deluxe Paint and I also remember Photoshop before it had layers!
Every few years, another bit of friction disappeared as technology kept making really hard things, really easy to do.
And now AI is taking another enormous chunk out of the execution.
Write this. Design that. Make me an image. Give me twenty options.
The difficult bit is no longer in the making of things.
It’s deciding what’s worth making in the first place.
When execution requires rare skills, those skills are valuable.
When skills become automated, judgment becomes scarce. Or at least more diluted by a sudden abundance of slop.
It’s knowing which idea is worth developing, which one might open up a completely different avenue, and which one should go straight in the bin (I’ve never really subscribed to the school of ‘there are no bad ideas’ BTW)
AI may well eventually make technically accomplished work completely effortless but that doesn’t make judgment less important. It kinda makes it the whole point.
Nearly 140 years after Kodak, we’ve built an extraordinary version of the same promise:
You press the button, we do the rest.
But the button was never the interesting bit, it was always the person who pressed it.