For more than two years, I’ve been testing and experimenting with AI tools in my creative process. What started as curiosity after I attended a national design conference has become an everyday part of how I ideate, brainstorm, write, and refine messaging. My takeaway? AI should be treated like any other creative tool. It can be powerful, but it should never a replacement for human creativity.

Why AI is “Just Another Tool”

Designers already rely on powerful tools: Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, video editors, analytics platforms. AI joins that toolbox, but it’s different in one critical way: it generates possibilities at scale. That power comes with responsibility.

Without a skilled human guiding it, AI can produce results that are generic, biased, or ethically questionable. Which is why creativity remains human. It’s the designer, strategist, or storyteller who adds vision, empathy, and meaning.

The Ethics of Using AI in Creativity

Bias Awareness:AI can unintentionally reproduce stereotypes. We must actively check and refine its outputs.

Ownership & Transparency:Content origin, copyright, and originality matter. Being clear about how AI is usedprotects both clients and creatives.

Human Oversight:AI suggestions should be starting points, never final products. The human creative must remain in control.

Human-Centered Creativity

I think of my approach as Human-Centered Creativity. Similar to Human-Centered Design, it’s about putting people first. The designer’s role is to ensure AI enhances creativity while preserving ethics, empathy, and cultural relevance. Frameworks like Human-Centered AI (HCAI) and Value-Sensitive Design (VSD) align perfectly with this philosophy: AI should support human flourishing, not replace it.

The Future of Creativity with AI

When used ethically, AI can:
• Free up time for deeper creative exploration
• Expand brainstorming possibilities
• Speed up iteration and experimentation
• Help uncover insights and patterns

But at its best, AI is not the creator—it’s the collaborator. Creativity will always require human guidance, intuition, and storytelling.

Conclusion: Creativity is human—not because AI can’t mimic us, but because ethics, judgment, and storytelling remain inherently human. AI is our creative toolbox’s biggest upgrade—but it demands thoughtful, values-driven hands to wield it.

Written by Steve Blackard
(using a dash of AI to help research and ideate).

In 1985, I was kickin’ it in tight-rolled Bugle Boys and sporting a MacGyver mullet! My life as a husky 9-year-old was pretty rad! I was a high roller on the playground, wearing my Air Jordans and a designer neon Trapper Keeper. Little did I know that later that year, I would witness the single greatest season the Chicago Bears would ever have. 1985 was an epic year that summed up most of my cherished childhood memories.

The first item I will address is the mullet. As I said, it was a MacGyver mullet—which is to say, feathered in the front and party in the rear. In my defense, lots of cool dudes had sweet mullets back then. For example: Kirk Cameron, Michael J. Fox, Huey Lewis and some of the News, Jim McMahon, and Hulk Hogan! A fine group to look up to… in 1985, that is!

Tight-rolled jeans were, in hindsight, an error in judgment. And don’t you dare call them “pegged”… what are we, pirates?! My Bugle Boys were as stonewashed as they could be, with two cargo pockets—one to carry my Walkman and one to carry my pouch of Big League Chew. Couple that with my red and white Air Jordans, and I was “big pimpin’” in a world where slap bracelets and friendship pins ruled.

There were a few dark hours for me in 1985… Although the amazing buddy adventure movie The Goonies holds a great place in my heart, it gave way to a form of parlor trick that a husky fellow such as me would endure for years to come. Like the clown who is crying under the makeup, I smiled and laughed on the outside when fulfilling a request to do the Truffle Shuffle. >sigh!<

1985 was also the year I was introduced to the Nintendo Entertainment System! That year, Santa left me a huge box that came with not only an NES console, but also a futuristic-looking Zapper light gun and a… ROBOT? I’m not sure what the robot was supposed to do in the “Deluxe” package, but I was quick to brag about it to my friends! I found out later from my older brothers that I wasn’t the first one to break in my glorious grey rectangle controllers. Apparently, my parents decided to hide the NES in their closet because they knew I wouldn’t dare look for it there. I was saddened on Christmas Day that both of my brothers seemed to be expert shooters at Duck Hunt… as if they had been playing for weeks!

In closing, if you can imagine: In between episodes of ThunderCats and Small Wonder, found doodling in the margins of his Trapper Keeper while humming the theme to Rocky, was a chubby 9-year-old boy who didn’t realize he was living one of the greatest years of his life!