AI Can’t Replicate This Essential Human Power

Fear. It has driven humanity forward, kept us alive, and forced us to adapt. It fuels our creativity, our resilience, and our determination. Fear of the unknown sparks innovation. Fear of failure pushes us to improve. And yet, AI—this grand technological marvel—does not fear. AI moves forward without hesitation or doubt, but in doing so, it misses something fundamental to the human experience: the ability to imagine, dream, and create beyond what is already known.

Creativity and fear are linked.

You need fear to be creative. And, it is your fear is something no AI can ever truly touch. Creativity, artistic expression, and the way you see the world are inseparable from your ability to dream and expand beyond what is known into the realm of possibility. But this creativity instinct is also the food that fear feeds on. AI imitates, but does not produce “real fear”, it fakes it.

Creativity and fear are linked. AI breaks the link between creativity and fear. And, that’s not a good thing. Let me explain.

AI is a Facsimile of Relationships

Fake friends. Fake all the things. Junk food is bad because it is not the kind of food you need to survive and grow.

A friend and I recently discussed the apprehension we’ve had over the emergent disruptive power of AI. You can read about some of those thoughts in another article I wrote about how I fear AI is changing how I think, and not necessarily for the better.

AI may address uncertainty within certain relationships. But it’s not always a good for you. For example, you can prompt AI to help you address the question: “Does this so and so conversation with a friend address my <insert concern here>?” But the answer that arrives to you does so without a validation of facts. It may be made-up, or derived from someone else’s answer.

AI takes the average, gives you an average, and makes you think more average.

Here AI alleviates your fear of whatever issue you had, and potentially adds to your internal narrative (which may be false), providing hallucinations and even additional uncertainty in your interactions in the real world. And in doing so, serves as a fake salve—a band aid. It removes the need for a human to suffer, just a tiny bit, to grow that “resilience muscle” we all need to feel alive, content in our moments.

AI presents ideas that are easy to apply, nudging you and me toward the path of least resistance. Yet, deep down, I think we need to be aware that these are generic outputs—the aggregated average of all the concepts AI had collected across the internet.

And in this sense, AI propels us to be “normal”, as defined by the average of all its knowledge. AI is the great averaging machine. AI takes the average, gives you an average, and makes you think more average.

As humans, we abhor resistance. We don’t like wasting energy, so AI, in a way, exploits this vulnerability, leading you and me to not think outside the box. This is essentially the antithesis of creativity, art, and individualistic human expression. AI breaks our creativity by making it feel too easy.

The Power of Imagination in Miniature Painting

To keep this relevant to the Tangibleday Mission: The relevance of this entire site is about the art and hobby of tabletop miniatures and games—It is where I’ve documented the things we’ve learned in the hobby whatever that may be. Perhaps it’s the experiments and sense of personal discovery, or just that new shiny gadget.

Ultimately, in the hobby or art, you have a motivation to engage something tangible right in front of you: a model or gaming piece, whatever. There are colors, paints, but most importantly, emotions such as nostalgia, fear, horror—whatever the theme of your thing—and you bring that to thing “life from a blank page”.

AI cannot replicate that horrific thrill woven with…I don’t know, a creative-excitement. But prompting AI to guide you can create invisible artificial boundaries by sharing with you its its artificial understanding of what humans like, enjoy, and admire. Not what you like, enjoy, and admire, but the average of what others like, enjoy, and admire.

When it comes to miniature painting, I often suggest people use reference images to help inspire them. But ultimately, I also recommend to most to ignore what others think, say, or do. Be naive. Stay innocent before your start your art.

Of course, people do the same thing. You copy. I copy. We synthesize from our collective views and those we’ve experienced directly. But, there’s also a pure spark, It is yours, not mine. A core flash of light, belonging to no one but you.

It may be tiny, but it is unique in the Universe. That spark can grow, or it can die by our need to rely on others’ opinions—including AI feedback. What am I suggesting? When you’re trying to feed your creativity, stop asking for feedback.

Ultimately, You Have to Run Alone

Imagine a marathon runner standing at the starting line. Long before the race begins, they already see themselves crossing the finish line. They feel the thrill of the finish-ribbon break, even as they endure six months of grueling training—resisting junk food, pushing their bodies to the limit, and conditioning themselves for that one moment when all their hard work pays off.

That future-vision—that ability to imagine something that hasn’t happened (yet)—is what sets us apart from any AI system that gives us an easy.

When it comes to a marathon, my metaphor for any enduring project you’re engaged with, you grow stronger by suffering the entire process. The process of pain, fear, reward, stimulates all the brain power, emotional drive, and spiritual endurance I refer to to finish with more than you began. Run alone to run stronger and stronger.

Would you rather cross the finish line knowing every step was your own, even if you had to crawl on your hands and knees? Or would you prefer to arrive effortlessly, piggy-backing a robot?

Final Thought

AI is an amazing tool that I’ve come to understand more and more as something that will help me in everyday life. It simplifies complexity, cutting through noise, and saves me time by speeding along the mundane things. Think of it as an airbrush for those first priming or base coating steps when it comes to painting a mini. It’s fast, simple, and fun to use. But it will never replace the meticulous manual labor with a regular brush to paint a piece to that final, satisfying and “professional touch”.

The creativity in this sense to finish anything uniquely human is also consequently driven by the need to endure the pain of growth, the challenge of learning a trait, that let’s you finish a task the way you want it to be, ultimately.

AI robs us, slowly, because it strips away the raw, uncertain edges where inspiration thrives, leaving us with polished echoes of what could have been.