The Creative Infinite
I found myself using the phrase “the Creative Infinite” when I’m talking about AI as a design material. I keep coming back to it because I don’t think we’ve fully grasped what this technology actually is, what it can do, and what it means for human creative potential.
I want to set aside the usual conversations — IP concerns, job displacement, college kids lazy term papers. All of that is real, valid, and concerns around it all are shared by me. But here I want to focus on this fact: never before in human history has it been possible for anyone to simply ask for something to exist, and then it just…exists. Where the inputs can be anything, the outputs can be anything, and the whole process can be repeated, iterated, combined, translated, and chained together indefinitely.
I don’t think we fully understand what that means.
There’s never been a better time to have the thought “wouldn’t it be cool if…”
After playing some post-dinner Mario Party minigames, my 8-year-old casually told me she wanted to make a video game. “What do you want the game to be about?” I asked.
You’re a musician on tour with Michael McDonald. You travel to the South Pole and play with penguins.
She knows that I think Michael McDonald is hilarious (and talented), and I could tell she was trying to make me laugh.
“Do you want to make that?” I asked, and she said yeah.
In 5 minutes, Ella vibe-coded a playable game (built in Three.js via Claude Cowork) running in the browser.
That’s just bonkers. At no point in human history has it been possible to simply describe a game in words and then just… play it 5 minutes later.
Ella and I spent the next 15 minutes iterating over it, adding an objective of rounding up audience members who express their enthusiasm accompanied by a Michael McDonald factoid. We added tour stops (to Myrtle Beach and Portugal), and character customizations to dress the part of a rockstar.
We headed upstairs for bath and bedtime, and she was already talking about other games she’d make with her friends.
I keep thinking about the phrase “wouldn’t it be cool if…” I don’t think there’s ever been a better time in history to have that thought rattling around in your head. Because now we actually have the ability to act on it with almost no friction.
The barriers to creation have fully eroded
Over the course of my life, I’ve watched the barrier to creation come way down. PCs, the internet, smartphones — each wave brought more people into the act of making things.
But there’s always been a gap. People who can code and people who can’t. People who can make movies and people who can’t. A lot of those divides are artificial stories we tell ourselves, but there are legit barriers as well.
But now, If you can utter your idea in a few simple words, you can begin the creative process. That’s genuinely new.
It’s not just about ease of access; I think there are a ton of people who don’t fit in with classical models of how we’re “supposed” to think or communicate. Now peoples can speak in the way that’s natural to them and have it translate directly into the thing they intend. This is transformative for both the sender and receiver.
I’ve talked to so many people who say: I used to play music. I can’t draw. I wouldn’t know how to do that. And I think: you might be surprised.
The compounding nature of new creative materials
When a new technology comes along and sucks the air out of the room, it can be easy to forget that new technologies don’t destroy the old technologies, but rather has a compounding effect.
And because our general-purpose technology with all the other creative materials already at our disposal? Boy oh boy. The door doesn’t just open wider — it comes off its hinges entirely.
Your existing creative fluency still matters, maybe even more than before? Just as being able to play piano puts you in a better spot to wield a synthesizer. Knowing how to design makes you better at prompting visual tools. Understanding code makes you better at architecting what you want to build with AI. Craft. Taste. Art. Authentic expression. Purpose.
Into the creative infinite
Once again, I’m not going to downplay the downright terrifying aspects of all of this; I’m fully aware of the myriad reasons to be concerned about AI, AI’s original sin, and these powerful tools can and will be used by shitty people for shitty reasons.
But the Creative Infinite remains a simple statement of fact. Inputs go in, and outputs come out. That exists now, and it didn’t before.
I’m still processing the fact that for the rest of my life — and for my daughter’s life — there will be the ability to say wouldn’t it be cool if this existed? and then actually bring it into existence. As someone who makes things for a living, as someone who’s always had far more ideas than time, that feels WILD. I’ve always been frustrated by the gap between my imagination and my ability to execute. I’m now in a place where I’m actually creating things I’ve wanted to make for years.
So yeah, we now live in the Creative Infinite. So the question becomes: what are we gonna do with it? What are we going to make? To what end?
Of course I can’t tell you what to make, but please make it good.