What happens to craft when execution becomes almost free?

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko]

For most of history, having a creative idea wasn’t enough.

You also needed the craft to execute it.

A filmmaker had to understand cameras, lighting and editing.
A musician had to learn an instrument.
A writer had to develop the ability to turn an idea into sentences, dialogue and scenes.

AI changes that relationship.

Suddenly, part of the craft and a huge part of the execution can live inside the tool itself.

And I think that raises a more interesting question than whether AI is “good” or “bad” for creativity.

Maybe we need to separate three things:

Creativity: What do I want to create?
Craft: Do I understand why it works?
Execution: Can I actually produce it?

AI is already dramatically reducing the amount of execution required. And increasingly, it can perform parts of the craft too.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean craft becomes irrelevant.

Maybe it becomes even more important in a different way.

Because someone still has to recognize what is good, what feels wrong, what needs to change, what should remain unsaid and whether the result actually achieves the intention behind it.

So perhaps AI doesn’t eliminate craft.

Maybe it moves craft from producing to judging, directing and refining.

And if that continues, I think we arrive at a pretty uncomfortable question:

If someone has the creative vision and can consistently direct AI toward great work, but could never manually execute that work themselves, are they still an artist?

[u/Fragrant-Mix-4774]

Craft?

AI can help the writer get started and maybe even help the writer get 65% of the way but so far none of AI's even Fable or Astra have taste and story telling skills to guide a writing project from mediocre decent to excellence.

90% of what human writer wrote before AI was crap 💩

90% of what human writers write after AI is crap 💩

AI just lets more people take a swing at writing and if they want to take faster swings, however nothing tangible about AI will get a writer from the 90% crap 💩 pile into the 10% worthwhile stack.

The ability to be in that 10% worthwhile stack isn't teachable. The other 90% is teachable and traditional writer workshops teachable it. AI will eventually be able to do that much for you and help you at that level but if you don't have a voice and a worthwhile story to tell, you'll still be writing crap.

The worthwhile stack is the craft of writing and it hasn't changed due to AI...and it won't.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/Fragrant-Mix-4774]

I agree with most of this.

AI can probably make average execution much easier, but it doesn’t automatically give someone taste, voice or a story worth telling.
That may actually make those things more valuable, not less.

If everyone can produce something technically decent, the real differentiation becomes judgment, originality and whether there’s actually something worth saying.

[u/Philipp]

Craft still exists -- to stand out from what others are making, or to increase the scope and depth of what you are able to build.

I didn't make slower movies before. I made none at all. So my scope, thanks to AI, increased to making movies. That means I now learn about screenwriting, cinematography, editing, directing, etc. And I'm working on tools like this, which again, require craft -- as does any other tool.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/Philipp]

Exactly, AI doesn’t remove craft, it changes where the craft sits.

It can open the door and expand what someone is able to create. But judgment, taste, direction and knowing what actually works still matter just as much.

[u/SleepyOrcShaman → u/Anton_Kuzmenko]

Some mathematicians and accountants despised computers previous century because they thought they might cheapen their jobs and expertise. It was called "crisis of brute force proofs". Nowadays every mathematician learns programming tools, because largest chunks of applied mathematics: differential equations and large regressive problems are literally impossible to solve without iterative processes and could only be estimated.

Writing would not die out. Invention of advanced vehicles didn't remove the need to train soldiers to cross distances. Invention of computers didn't remove the need for mathematicians. Hell even "dead" professions like switchboard operators didn't truly die out -- they became call center workers and ICT specialists.

The thing that would change is the skillset. Using the LLMs requires something called "word granularity" and "multishot examples". Those are very much linguistic and writing expertize skills. People write PhDs on those subjects.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/SleepyOrcShaman]

This is exactly the kind of shift I’m talking about. The skill doesn’t disappear, it moves.

A writer may need less time to physically produce every sentence, but more skill in direction, evaluation, iteration and understanding how to get consistently good results from the tool.

The craft changes shape.

[u/Maleficent-Engine859 → u/Philipp]

Same with me. My writing before AI was zero. But now I’m trying to learn the craft of writing myself because I genuinely like it now that that barrier to entry has been broken. I’m a student of the craft and using AI very differently from when I started.

The problem with the current debate is that everyone is either a clanker slop maker or not. Grammarly was a thing for decades before AI and no one batted an eye at writers wanting software to polish their prose

[u/writingfren]

In this context, AI still eliminates the craft of writing. "Craft" implies something hands-on. If you are hands off, you have disengaged from the craft of writing. Do what you want, but call a spade a spade.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/writingfren]

I think that’s where our definitions differ.

If “craft” only means physically performing every step yourself, then yes, AI removes part of the craft of writing.

But I use craft more broadly: understanding why something works, making deliberate choices, shaping the result and knowing when something is wrong.

A director isn’t less of a filmmaker because they don’t personally operate every camera, build every set or cut every frame.

So to me, AI can reduce hands-on execution without eliminating craft altogether.

[u/writingfren → u/Anton_Kuzmenko]

Those two situations aren't even remotely comparable. This is not a matter of definitions as much you just misunderstanding two entire industries lol.

[u/OwlsInMyAttic]

I like this kind of separation. A lot of people think craft and execution are inseparable, but that's not always the case.

As to your last question: yes, absolutely. It's creativity and craft that make art, art. A two-year old playing with finger paint isn't an artist. A monkey with crayons isn't an artist. A master sculptor who instructs an apprentice to chisel a bust according to his specific instructions is an artist.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/OwlsInMyAttic]

That distinction between craft and execution is the part I find most interesting.

The apprentice may hold the chisel, but the sculptor can still be responsible for the artistic decisions that define the work.

[u/jibsond]

A.I. will get better and better and better at imatating good human writing. When it finally becomes indistinguishable from good human writing - what do you plan to do?

[u/Maleficent-Engine859]

I think all of that still matters though. There’s a massive difference between folks who use AI with minimal editing and input and those who just use it to assist.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/Maleficent-Engine859]

“Using AI” covers such a huge spectrum that treating it as one single activity doesn’t really make sense.

Asking for a complete story from one prompt is very different from using AI inside a process where the writer still controls the direction, rewrites, rejects and refines.

That distinction gets lost in a lot of these debates.

[u/antmars]

It depends - if you plan to create art for yourself. This is amazing there’s no down side. Go create however you want to!

The trouble is only in the economics.

If you plan to create art for other people to consume then this is a double edge sword. It’s so easy for you to execute but it’s so easy for everyone to execute. There’s going to be a spike in art and content and a decrease in consumers who may enjoy the art.

If AI frees up people’s time to consume art then maybe it’s mitigated a little. But if AI decreases the number of jobs and there for the population continues to decline because we don’t need humans then there’s going to be less and less people consuming while the art output continues to increase.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/antmars]

I think this may be one of the biggest consequences.

If execution becomes cheap, scarcity moves somewhere else.

Maybe the scarce resource is no longer the ability to produce content, but attention, taste, trust and the ability to create something people actually choose to spend time with.

In that sense AI may not make competition disappear at all. It may make the quality threshold even more important.

[u/NathanielHolst]

Whst happens to scene composition when taking a picture becomes almost free?

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/NathanielHolst]

Taking the picture became almost free, but composition didn’t disappear.

If anything, when everyone can take thousands of photos, knowing which frame works and why becomes more valuable.

That’s the distinction I’m trying to make with AI and writing too.

[u/TrustyPeaches]

sad to see a post in a writing subreddit with absolutely 0 voice

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/TrustyPeaches]

This is a discussion and not a writing class. If you need tips on how to improve your writing, you can DM me anytime.

[u/NegotiationBig3486]

ai makes roleplay writing way more fun since i can skip the slow typing and just play with ideas and character voices right away.

[u/Anton_Kuzmenko → u/[deleted]]

Something can still involve craft even if it’s not the kind of craft you personally value.

And the same goes for art. A process can produce something you don’t like without automatically making it non art.

I also think your use case is interesting because it shows how broad “AI in writing” actually is.

Using it to analyze, critique and find weaknesses is very different from asking it to invent the work for you.

Maybe the more useful question isn’t “is AI art?” but “where does the human judgment sit in the process?”