Why Human Creativity Still Matters in an Age of AI

What a Year in Review Tells Us About the Future of Creativity

Why Human Craft and Creativity Still Wins in an Age of AI – Episode 63

What Spotify Wrapped and a Holiday Ad Reveal About the Future of Creativity

As the year winds down, many of us find ourselves reflecting—not just on what we’ve done, but on how we’ve spent our attention. In this holiday episode of Modem Futura, Andrew Maynard and I leaned into that instinct, using Spotify Wrapped as an unexpected entry point into a deeper conversation about creativity, technology, and what still matters in an AI-accelerated world.

Wrapped experiences are playful by design, but they’re also revealing. They quietly surface patterns of listening, engagement, and community—reminding us that culture is shaped not just by algorithms, but by millions of individual choices. For us, seeing how Modem Futura resonated globally wasn’t about vanity metrics; it was a reminder that thoughtful, exploratory conversations still find an audience, even in an oversaturated media landscape.

From there, the conversation turned to Apple’s 2025 holiday Ad (but feels like a short film) A Critter Carol—a whimsical, puppet-driven production that feels almost rebellious in its insistence on visible human labor. In a moment when AI can generate polished video in seconds, Apple chose puppeteers, practical effects, and intentional imperfection. The result isn’t just charming; it’s instructive.

The ad works because you can feel the human care embedded in every frame. It’s not anti-technology—far from it. It’s pro-human. Advanced tools are present throughout the production pipeline, but they serve imagination rather than replace it. That distinction matters.

You can read a more detailed breakdown of this Ad and the care and craft that goes into it in a previous blog post: Apple’s 2025 Holiday Ad and the Power of Human-Made Creativity in an AI World.

We’re at a cultural inflection point. As generative tools remove friction from making things, the temptation is to settle for what’s “good enough.” But creativity has always lived in resistance—iteration, constraint, failure, and craft. When those disappear, so does much of what gives creative work its soul.

One hope we shared on the episode is that 2026 becomes the year of “behind the scenes”—a renewed appreciation for process, labor, and the messy human work that makes meaningful outcomes possible. Whether in education, media, or design, showing how something is made may soon matter as much as the finished product itself.

If the future is being shaped right now, then choosing care, intention, and humanity in how we use our tools may be one of the most important creative acts we have left.

Subscribe and Connect!

Subscribe to Modem Futura wherever you get your podcasts and connect with us on LinkedIn. Drop a comment, pose a question, or challenge an idea—because the future isn’t something we watch happen, it’s something we build together. The medium may still be the massage, but we all have a hand in shaping how it touches tomorrow.

🎧 Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/48Sdx6r

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4TVwLBfncHjPs4kDKbLz5t?si=QFYyZuq9R-WtgoEPTeWOlw

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/N1vTfDPSusY

🌐 Website: https://www.modemfutura.com/

The Hidden Costs of “That Was Easy”: AI Slop, Creative Friction, and the Future of Human Craft

In this Modem Futura episode, hosts Sean Leahy and Andrew Maynard examine the rise of “AI slop” and the growing cultural pressure to accept frictionless creation as the norm. Drawing on examples from coding, design, futures thinking, and psychology, they unpack how satisficing, homogenization, and inherited power threaten to erode human craft and understanding. The article explores why creative friction is essential for mastery, agency, and meaning — and offers futures-oriented insights into how we can use AI intentionally without losing what makes us human.

ChatGPT Illustrated version of Modem Futura YouTube Thumbnail

Generative AI has ushered in an era where producing text, images, video, and code is no longer a challenge — it’s a button press. And in this week’s episode of Modem Futura, Andrew and I wrestle with a growing cultural tension: if everything is easy, what happens to the things that matter?

It began with a shared frustration. Both of us have noticed an explosion of what we call AI slop (content that is technically competent but devoid of care, intention, and personality). You’ve seen it too: the LinkedIn posts with identical emojis, the slide decks that all look like NotebookLM, the essays with no point of view. These things aren’t wrong, they’re just empty. And the emptiness is the point.

We discuss a concept called satisficing: the act of choosing something “good enough” rather than something excellent. In the age of AI, satisficing has become an increasing default mode of creation. Why craft an idea when you can generate one? Why wrestle with a blank page when you can autocomplete your way to the finish line?

But here’s the problem: friction is where learning happens. It’s where creativity lives. It’s the sanding that polishes the stone. When you remove friction, you remove the struggle — and without struggle, there is no mastery, no depth, and no meaning.

Throughout the episode, we explore how this plays out across domains. Coders relying on AI-generated code they can’t understand. Designers accepting images that are “close enough.” Writers sharing posts they didn’t write. And organizations flirting with a future where expertise is replaced by button-pressing.

We draw on Michael Crichton’s concept of inherited power from Jurassic Park: the idea that wielding abilities you never earned leads to carelessness, overconfidence, and danger. AI gives us power we didn’t work for — and without wisdom, that power is hollow.

But this isn’t a pessimistic episode. We explore how AI can amplify creativity when used intentionally, how friction can be designed back into workflows, and why people may ultimately push back against frictionless living. Humans crave meaning, not efficiency. And meaning takes work.

If you’re navigating how to use AI thoughtfully — in your craft, your teaching, your leadership, or your creative life — this episode offers a grounded, futures-focused lens on what we stand to lose and what we still have time to protect.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of Modem Futura — and join the conversation on what we should preserve in an age that wants to eliminate every struggle.

Subscribe and Connect!

Subscribe to Modem Futura wherever you get your podcasts and connect with us on LinkedIn. Drop a comment, pose a question, or challenge an idea—because the future isn’t something we watch happen, it’s something we build together. The medium may still be the massage, but we all have a hand in shaping how it touches tomorrow.

🎧 Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/48WCGgh

🎧 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1BajA2SvDWVyY0mRSQ9Flk?si=wvCFhWlgQtC2kye3bGz5Kg

📺 YouTube: https://youtu.be/1V9PD7j8iu8

🌐 Website: https://www.modemfutura.com/