When people say "the industry is cooked," they're talking about capitalism. The money-making machine fueled by human creativity. Not the artistry. Not the act of storytelling. They're worried about who moves the money, how it moves, and who gets to play.

And while I have thoughts on that, the topic bores me.

We've been so trained to monetize every nook and cranny of our lives that innovation has become synonymous with revenue streams rather than impact. Even as someone who works in the creative space professionally, dissecting the 'industry' feels more like housekeeping than discovery.

Capitalism will always find a new faucet.

What I care about is what happens to the act of creativity beyond the dollar. What happens when the tools democratize but the vision doesn't? What happens when everyone(regardless of training or experience) can make “cinema-level” content with a prompt?

Here's what happens: The bar moves.

The Game Always Changes When Everyone Can Play

AI-generated video is a game-changer. Very real-looking content, crafted from a couple of sentences, is going mainstream. Everyone's excited about it and rightfully so, I can see the reasons why.

But please understand something crucial: the minute everyone can do something is exactly when the rules change.

Capitalism thrives on haves and have-nots. Supply and demand. Scarcity creates value.

It’s why:

• When more people started making six figures, luxury rent doubled

• When more folks formed LLCs, the government added new fees and fines

• When college degrees became common, they meant less in the job market

• When your "great again" government needs revenue, they cut healthcare for the elderly to give tax breaks to the wealthy

Whenever "everyone" reaches the bar, the bar moves. Literal walls get built to slow the wave.

So now that everyone can make a Spielberg-level movie with a few prompts, the definition of "Spielberg-level" will change.

The tools evolve. But so does the game.

Your Thumbprint Is the New Commodity

So what does the mean for the creatives, the industry vets, and the newcomers alike? Here's my insight, and I'm saying this with complete confidence: Creatives aren’t being replaced, we’re being revealed.

We're entering an environment where the best ideas will rise to the surface, regardless of technical skill. The playing field is leveling, and pure creative vision is what will separate the noise from the signal.

Here's why…

In a world flooded with AI-generated content, scarcity isn't about technical capability anymore. It's about something far more valuable and infinitely harder to replicate: your thumbprint.

The human touch. Your taste. Your nuance. Your perspective. That's the pulse.

The people who inject emotion into pixels, establish purpose beneath the pizazz,…those are the ones who'll rise above the noise.

The tools are man-made, but the insight is God-given.

You are a being living within this world, not a product of it. In an AI-generated landscape, who you are becomes your strongest currency. Your heartbeat is the differentiator.

The New Lens: Human Touch in a Digital World

So what's the new bar? What lens will "noteworthy" be judged through?

• Getting clear on your thumbprint. In a world where everyone has access to the same tools, what makes your work undeniably yours?

• Honoring your assignment. AI can't do any more than what you bring to it. Your vision, your questions, your cultural context. Those will be what transforms a prompt into something meaningful.

• Following your heartbeat. The human touch will be the new scarce resource, and the most beautiful part is you have it for free.

Don't Start With the Tool. Start With You.

I want you to get excited about the technology, make your movies, make the apps. Play with the tech. Experiment with every new AI platform that drops.

While you do that anchor yourself with the reality that if you want to win the creative game in an AI world, don't start with the tool. Start with you.

The tech is your assistant, not your author.

Your job isn't to lean entirely on the machine, regardless of how “easy” and “fast” things appear. Your job is to bring something to the machine that only you can bring. Your perspective. Your questions. Your way of seeing the world.

That's what can't be commoditized.

The Questions We Need to Ask

Here's where it gets interesting and complicated. This shift raises questions that go way deeper than "will AI replace creatives?"

Industry Evolution: Will the talent pool of creators shift toward curators, and does it matter? Maybe the real skill won’t be making things anymore, but knowing what's worth making. Sifting through infinite AI possibilities to find and build what actually matters.

Cultural Implications: Who owns culture when AI can replicate any voice? If a prompt can generate content "in the style of 1990s Black cinema" or mimic Indigenous storytelling techniques the work moves beyond technical replication into cultural extraction, at scale.

The Creative Process: What happens when speed kills depth? When everyone can make "good" content instantly, does the pressure to produce faster actually make us less creative? Are we trading depth for velocity without realizing it?

Systemic Effects: Can algorithms homogenize taste itself? If AI learns from existing "successful" content, do we end up in a feedback loop where the landscape of nuance becomes increasingly narrow?

Human Development: What do we lose when we skip the struggle? The 10,000 hours of learning, developing instincts, failing forward…what happens to human development when the learning curve flattens?

This is the roadmap for navigating what's coming next.

The Real Revolution

Here's what excites me about this moment: creativity has the opportunity to return to its truest form. When the technical barriers drop, when anyone can execute at a "professional" level, the only thing left that matters is the vision behind the execution.

Creativity should be a gift to the world so special that people are willing to pay for it, not vice-versa.

In an AI-generated world, your thumbprint, your unique way of interpreting, questioning, and reimagining reality, becomes the commodity.

The bar will move, yes. But it's moving in a direction that favors the curious over the conformist. The inspired over the imitative.

And if you've been paying attention, if you've been asking the right questions, if you've been developing your own lens on the world this shift isn't a threat.

It's your moment.

The human touch will be what's hard to find. Make sure yours is impossible to ignore.

Stay curious. Stay inspired.

What's your thumbprint? I'd love to hear how you're thinking about your unique creative signature in the comments below.