Let’s just pull the humans completely out of the game completely, huh? Spin yourself around and ask what goes into the mix next.

An article that I read recently from The Verge called Instagram is adding an AI ‘assistant’ to tell you how to post^[1] triggered some full-circle vibes in my artist’s heart. “Creators can also ask for ideas for content, how to hook viewers, what captions to use, which audio tracks are trending, and how to script videos.” 

In business analysis there is a tool called RACI.  It is meant for project management type stuff, allowing for a charted map of how many people are involved in crossing the finish line of a major project. R stands for responsible. A stands for accountable. C stands for consulted. And I stands for informed.  If those words made any sense to you, you’ll also realize that with each progressive letter the less hands-on the role of the person with that letter assigned. Someone who is responsible, say, is doing the actual work, while someone who is informed, gets an email that the work was done.

Look, I don’t want to get into the weeds on what terrible social media company is using which generative product in a ridiculous way this week. The bigger picture here is that with each so-called innovation and tool designed to automate the creative process, real people are being shifted further down the RACI alphabet list roles of the experience.

Where once we were Responsible for making it, later just Accountable for asking for something to make it, now it seems like more and more AI is just going to Consult us on the things it is making on our behalf. It may seem pretty cushy to work oneself into a sit-back-and-be Informed role, getting an email when your content is ready and your likes have been tallied, but what the hell does that do to the humanity of any of the content this process churns out? 

At what point is it just bots all the way down?

Tin-foil hats aside, this continues to be the human creator hokey-pokey but we’re only ever taking ourselves out of the circle one piece at a time.