Why Human Presence, Craftsmanship, and Connection will Always Command a Premium.
The ‘AI replacement threat’. It makes for a clickable headline, and it may be keeping you up at night. People who are invested in AI platforms even benefit from stirring up this fear and spreading this message.
When I see people worrying about AI stealing their job my mind turns to the advent of factory farming.
AI and the Factory Farming of Expertise
It used to be that if we wanted beef or milk we would have our own cow, or trade with our neighbor, or buy it from the farmer on the other side of town. Food had a face. It had a place. And it had a relationship behind it.
Then, when factory farming was introduced these things could be mass produced at a fraction of the cost. Now we can get beef or milk for cheap in the supermarket.
Granted, it’s not great for us, and it’s even worse for the animals and the environment, but it’s a good metaphor for the advancements of Artificial Intelligence to the point now that it can make a website, write a book, and scrape the whole of the internet for advice on any topic in barely seconds.
Suddenly these things that were once provided only by skilled experts are now at everyone’s fingertips, and for cheap.
Some of the masses may rejoice in this (but I happen to know not everyone feels this way) and the skilled experts may lament, fearing that this is the end of a lucrative career they’ve built for themselves.
So, is it a race to the bottom from here on out?
It could be if what you’re producing is “mass” in quality, sourcing, meaning, energy, and in the client experience.
If the work is interchangeable. If the process is transactional. If the result is just another thing produced quickly, cheaply, and without much thought behind it.
But here’s where this metaphor becomes important.
Now that factory farmed meats and dairy products are readily available for cheap in the supermarket (putting aside the fact that nothing is cheap at the grocery store these days — that’s a separate rant) there are boutique farms, niche producers, and “10-mile” restaurants filling the desire… some might say the need… for small-batch, high quality products that are not factory farmed.
These places exist because people feel the difference.
There’s a farm near me with a small herd of dairy cows that is bottling their grass-fed milk in thick glass jars — the kind you trade in for a deposit — and they will even deliver your order to your doorstep (in the cutest little black and white cube van, by the way).
And people pay a premium for this if they are able, despite the fact that 4-gallon plastic jugs of milk are available for half the price at the supermarket.
Why?
Because they aren’t just paying for milk.
They are paying for the experience of pouring local, ethically sourced milk out of an old fashioned glass jug that they will trade in the next time that familiar little truck comes down the street.
People pay a premium for organic, yes, but also for nostalgia. And for connection. To belong to a community. To feel seen and cared for by an expert who is passionate about the service they provide.
THIS is why skilled experts don’t need to worry about AI stealing their job.
There will always be a market for a premium and high-touch experience.
The Creation Magic of Humans
In fact, the more digital the world becomes, the more special it feels to have real, authentic, human connections. To have someone’s heart and soul behind our tools and treasures.
If we could peer beneath the veil of the 3D world we would realize that there is magic in everything we do.
Washing, painting, dancing, gardening, baking, building…
It doesn’t matter what exactly a human is doing.
When they are doing it with savvy — when they are “in the zone” — there’s a cauldron of good, healing energy swirling on the other side of the veil.
It’s abstract, and we may not be consciously aware of it, but we can feel it.
And this creation magic is something AI will never be able to reproduce.
When something is produced by Artificial Intelligence, not only is it a replica, assembled from previous versions of the thing you want to create, but those swirling, sparkling “energy particles” are absent.
And without them the result is more like a mass produced, factory farmed, plastic-wrapped slab of beef instead of an expertly carved artisanal cut hand wrapped in wax paper.
The Value of the Personal
I’m a little embarrassed to think back to how, when I first launched Physis Publishing, I said “we” all the time.
I did this because I felt like a design agency needs a team in order to be taken seriously.
But after hearing the horror stories of my clients who had previously been bumped around amongst different “managers” in one of those big design firms, I realized something important.
The strength was in being more personal.
Instead of being passed from sales team to strategist to designer to project manager to account rep, my clients work directly with the person doing the thinking, the designing, and the caring about the outcome.
The work becomes more focused. The process becomes more human. The result becomes something crafted rather than assembled.
In other words, the opposite of factory farming.
And this is where the opportunity lies for anyone feeling anxious about AI.
If your work is meant to compete with the factory farms of the digital world, then yes… things are likely to get uncomfortable.
But if the experience of working with you is carefully crafted, personal, thoughtful, and rooted in real human presence, then the acceleration of AI doesn’t eliminate your value.
It actually highlights it.
Because in a world flooded with mass-produced cheap outputs, people begin searching for the ‘small farms’ again.
They look for the makers. The thinkers. The ones who are honing the craft.
They look for the people who care about the experience, and who are willing to show up real and human in their work.
The opportunity isn’t to compete with the factory farms of the digital world.
The opportunity is to be the boutique family farm. The small batch producer. The heritage craftsman. The one whose work carries the unmistakable signature of a real human being behind it.
