Building Cathedrals

Is using AI for creative work “cheating”?

If all you’re doing is outsourcing thinking, maybe. But that’s not the real question.

Most people use AI to go faster. Same work. Less effort. Smaller thinking. That’s fine for productivity. But it’s also how you drift into Decay. Judgement softens, taste blurs and ambition quietly shrinks.

But done right, AI doesn’t replace you. It pulls bigger work out of you.

I call it 'The Cathedral Effect'. Using AI as scaffolding to build things you didn't imagine you could build before. AI provides the propulsion. Humans bring the point of view, the taste, the courage.

If you surrender those, you’re not working with AI. You’re kneeling to it.