I’ve never seen myself as someone who resists innovation. When ChatGPT launched, I was fascinated. When Midjourney generated its first images, I thought it was incredible. I’m curious, open-minded, tech-friendly – that’s always been my self-image. And then, at some point, something shifted. Quietly. Hard to put into words. A resistance I never invited.
Recently I watched The Devil Wears Prada 2, and there was this one line – something like: We don’t need locations anymore. No models. No photographers. It was said so casually, received so positively. And I felt like someone had cut something open inside me. I think about a photographer who spent years studying light. Who learned how it falls on skin, how it amplifies an emotion, how it lies or tells the truth. I think about a film crew coming together – different passions, different obsessions – creating something none of them could have made alone. Take Shrek. A film that became a cultural phenomenon even though it was almost a throwaway project. You can see the sweat in the pixels, you know the making-ofs, you know how long certain scenes took. None of it was calculated – and that’s exactly why it became immortal. Where did those stories go?
I genuinely ask myself whether this is still innovation. Innovation is supposed to move things forward – for people, not just for balance sheets. AI in medicine, in engineering, in science: I get it, I even welcome it. But what does a technology move forward when its greatest benefit is making the human being itself unnecessary? I’m a capitalist – I say that deliberately. I believe in hard work, in risk, in the courage to build something. The narrative that drives me works like this: someone spends years mastering a skill, takes risks, and then creates something that gives other people something real. That story has dignity. What happens to it when the skill itself becomes a subscription for a few bucks a month?
I don’t know if my fear is justified. Maybe it’s just the hype. Maybe what has always prevailed will prevail again – that the human element survives because we need it to. But I know how it feels. It feels like we’re making ourselves obsolete – and clapping while we do it. I’m almost ashamed of this resistance, because it feels like backwardness. But maybe it’s not resistance against the future. Maybe it’s resistance for the idea that people still have a place in it.
The full article is coming soon.