If Taste Were Downloadable, We’d Be in Trouble
ChatGPT: Curt Doty
Let’s get something straight: creativity isn't on sale at the prompt store. The idea that AI has suddenly turned the masses into creators is not just naïve - it’s insulting.
Anyone can create. Always could. But the act of creating - with guts, taste, vulnerability, and vision? That’s still rare. And it always will be.
From cave walls to Pixar render farms, creativity has been a constant. What’s changed isn’t access - it’s effort. Will. And the cultural conditioning to not create. To leave it to the “weirdos.”
I’ve lived that weird. Hired for it. Fired for it. Built brands, launched networks, and cut through cultural clutter with sharp aesthetics and point of view. Not output. Vision.
Today’s AI boom isn’t unleashing some creative utopia. It’s flooding the zone with slop. Fast food for the eyes. Everyone’s remixing the same Ghibli mashups and VHS-core vaporwave with no risk, no voice, no you.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth no one wants to say out loud: AI hasn’t made everyone creative - it’s just made everyone lazier.
Prompting is not painting. Asking is not inventing. Dragging a slider on Midjourney doesn’t make you a designer any more than ordering off a menu makes you a chef.
AI isn’t democratizing creativity. It’s industrializing derivative. And the creative hacks - those who already cut corners and sold mediocrity as “efficient” - have a new toy to hide behind.
But for us? The real ones? This is a call to arms.
We are not obsolete. We are the standard. The filter. The firewall against sameness. While others are busy chasing virality, we’re busy shaping identity.
Creativity - real creativity - is still the domain of the brave. The misunderstood. The ones who make people nervous because we don’t show our math. The ones who go where no brief told us to go - and bring back something no one knew they needed.
So no, AI isn’t making everyone creative.
It’s just showing how few people ever were.
And in that vacuum, it’s our moment. The hacks are exposed. The slop is piling up. And the appetite for something real - crafted, risky, unforgettable - is bigger than ever.
So grab your tools. Your taste. Your scars.
Because the age of creative automation is here.
And it’s never been easier to spot the frauds.
About the Author
Curt Doty, founder of CurtDoty.co, is an award winning creative director whose legacy lies in branding, product development, social strategy, integrated marketing, and User Experience Design. His work of entertainment branding includes Electronic Arts, EA Sports, ProSieben, SAT.1, WBTV Latin America, Discovery Health, ABC, CBS, A&E, StarTV, Fox, Kabel 1, and TV Guide Channel.
He has extensive experience on AI-driven platforms MidJourney, Adobe Firefly, ChatGPT, Perplexity, HeyGen, Descript and OpusClips. He also runs his AI consultancy RealmIQ and companion podcast RealmIQ: Sessions on YouTube and Spotify.
As a new writer, he released his first novella Griffin and the Dark Secret on Amazon under his imprint MediaSlam Press and is working on the second installment Griffin: Future Past.
He is a sought after public speaker having been featured at Streaming Media NYC, Digital Hollywood, Mobile Growth Association, Mobile Congress, App Growth Summit, Promax, CES, CTIA, NAB, NATPE, MMA Global, New Mexico Angels, Santa Fe Business Incubator, EntrepeneursRx, Davos Worldwide, NMPRSA, Robert Half, and AI Impact. He has lectured at universities including Full Sail, SCAD, Art Center College of Design, CSUN and Chapman University.
He currently serves on the board of the Godfrey Reggio Foundation and is the AI Writer for Parlay Me.
