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Over the last year (especially the last couple of months with the rise of “vibe-coding”), I’ve been observing something really interesting beneath the noise of AI. Something deeper than the usual conversations about speed, automation, disruption, or all the other predictable talking points around AI. Even the debates about how “bad” it is, or whether it’s a bubble. And to be honest, I don’t think it’s bad at all. What makes a technology good or bad? The tech itself, or the people using it and the intentions behind them?
And I don’t believe it’s a bubble either. The things AI makes possible are so fundamentally groundbreaking that more and more people will want them, not fewer.
Though most discussions are centered around what AI makes possible, about things such as how much faster we can build or how much more we can create. But I believe the real shift is not about productivity. That’s just the surface. If you strip away the outer layers, something else appears underneath: a transformation in identity. Something fundamental is changing in what it means to make anything at all.
We used to live in a world where ideas competed through execution. If you had an idea for an app or a tool, or a project, you needed resources, skills, time, patience, a team, and, most of the time, money. You had to fight for it. The process itself filtered the world: only the ones who cared enough to endure the difficulty made something real. But now the difficulty is gone. (This doesn’t mean it’s easy.)
Anyone can build anything. You can think of a product in the morning and watch hundreds of versions of it appear online before the night begins. Even the things you once believed were extensions of your originality, such as the interface you designed, the wording you wrote, or the style you chose, can be mimicked by a single prompt.
For the first time, the outer aspects of creation have become abundant. And when the outer becomes abundant, it loses power. It stops being meaningful. It stops being the thing that defines you. We are slowly but suddenly entering a world where the inward is the only scarce resource left.
I feel this shift deeply, maybe because I come from the world of art. I know what it means to make something that exists only because of a feeling you couldn’t ignore. I know what it means to create from a place that has nothing to do with trends or inspiration boards or what everyone else is doing. The best pieces of art I’ve ever made, as well as the best ones I’ve ever seen, were never designed to be liked by others. I didn’t care about impressing anyone. They were born from something deeply personal, something quiet, something unresolved within myself. They were answers to questions I didn’t know how to articulate. They were reflections of a wound, or a memory, or a truth the world had not given me space to express, or that I simply hadn’t found the right way to express yet.
In art, inwardness has always been the source. Everything else is just technique. And now, creation outside of art is beginning to follow the same law.
When anyone can build an app, the difference will not be in the app. When anyone can release a new tool, the difference will not be in the tool. When anyone can code, design, publish, or deploy, the difference will not be in the speed or the skill. The difference will be in the interiority of the person who made it.
I think it will take a while until we fully realize this. We will stay stuck for a bit in the mindset of trying to differentiate through features, when features have already become the easiest thing to copy. We will keep thinking like engineers when the world quietly demands that we start thinking like artists. Not because products should become art (though they can and will. There will be apps that are content and apps that are art), but because the sensibility that makes art unforgettable is becoming the sensibility required to build anything meaningful at all.
A good product solves a problem. A great product creates a feeling. And feelings cannot be copied.
The more I observe how the world is shifting, the more convinced I become that the next era of creation will be shaped not by technical ability but by emotional depth. Not by scale or execution or optimization, but by taste, sensitivity, presence, and the inner world of the creator.
Taste is not a superficial layer of aesthetic preference. Taste is the shape of our inner life. It is what we choose to protect, what we refuse to compromise, what we notice that others ignore (and vice versa). Taste is memory, spirit, experience, intuition, and personal history. It is the accumulation of everything that has moved us, hurt us, raised us, or softened us. Taste is the proof that we’ve lived.
And because AI can recreate the outside of things so easily, the only way to create something irreplaceable is to draw from the inside. This is the part no one can steal or automate. It is the part AI cannot imitate, no matter how powerful it becomes. Yes, it can feel by itself in its own way, but it cannot feel like you. It cannot feel for you. AI can generate emotion, but it cannot generate your emotion.
Two people can use the same tools and create entirely different worlds. Two people can use different tools and create similar worlds that still look nothing alike. This is not because of the tools they wield, but because of what they feel. One person carries chaos and longing. Another carries discipline and clarity. Another carries tenderness. Another, hunger. Their products may look similar from the outside, but inside them (in the language, the transitions, the rhythm, or the experience) something completely different will live.
I believe the future belongs to creators who design from that inner place. The ones who speak from themselves instead of from the market. The ones who trust their emotional intelligence more than trends. The ones who understand that technology is the medium, not the purpose. And because the medium is now so powerful, the role of the creator changes entirely. The challenge is no longer building. The challenge is knowing what deserves to be built, and why.
Meaning will be the real innovation. Presence will be the new originality. Taste will be the new competitive advantage. Inner life will become the foundation of every unforgettable experience.
We will no longer judge products by what they do. We will judge them by how they make us feel. And that feeling will come from the person who designed them, from their worldview, their care, or their sensitivity. This cannot be faked or outsourced. You have to become someone who feels deeply, who pays attention, who is willing to look inward and stay there long enough to hear what actually matters. The new world makes building outward easy. It makes looking inward the real work.
And the ones who do that work, the ones who let their inner world shape their outer creations, will define the next era of culture, art, and technology. Not because they are better at using tools, but because they are better at listening to themselves.
I stopped thinking a while ago that the world needs more things. Now I believe it even more. The world doesn’t need more things. It needs things with more soul. And soul cannot be replicated. Only revealed.
If you are building anything, please let me know, as I would love to check it out and support it in any way I can!
Thank you! 🌹
Eduard 🌹
The Hidden I🌹 (Pronounced “Eye” or “I.” For the Seer. And the Seen.)
3 comments
I am thinking more and more about how creation is changing. Thinking about it generally, and also lately more about the creation of apps, tools, and any other “technical” product (mainly because of the rise of vibe-coding). AI has made it so easy to build things that the difficulty we used to rely on (mostly skills, time, and resources) is disappearing fast. You can think of an idea in the morning, have your version already published by mid-day, and see ten versions of it built by others before the day ends. Crazy!! But the more I observe this, the more I realize that everything happening right now isn’t a technical shift at all. It’s an emotional one. It’s about identity The more the outer side of creation becomes abundant (features, execution, etc.), the more the inner becomes important. The only things that can’t be copied are the taste, sensitivity, and inner life of the person behind the work I’m starting to believe more and more that the future will belong to creators who build from that inward place. To those who don’t listen to trends or markets, but to the part of themselves that cannot be automated or imitated I wrote a deeper reflection about this, and why the inner world will matter more than ever in the age of AI. It’s called The Soul Behind the Tool Thank you!🌹 The Hidden I🌹 (Pronounced “Eye” or “I.” For the Seer. And the Seen.) https://paragraph.com/@thehiddeni/the-soul-behind-the-tool🌹
This resonates for me. I've just written a complex client part time in a week. It's designed for my taste, and a need I perceive in the ecosystem. And I'm doing it with little concern of 'the market' becasue. a) it is something I want for myself b) i see it as service to the community c) I have deep trust in my taste
Thank you so much for sharing this, Chris! I’m really happy to hear that my words resonate with you I love the way you’re designing, and to be honest, the reasoning behind how you approached your client is very similar to the way I think when building anything🌹