What Human Mastery Means in the Age of AI

“Former Creative Director Now Pioneering AI Education for Creatives”

Another scroll, another AI course ad in my Instagram feed. The future is now, it says. 

“Masters of AI is the ultimate course for creatives looking to stay ahead…”

And I can’t help but wonder where we are going.

I picture my students, eyes fixed on screens, more concerned with managing than making—fine-tuning prompts, adjusting parameters, coaxing images from code. Are we raising a generation of designers or technicians? Artists or caretakers of algorithms? 

The question is neither a simplistic dichotomy nor a matter of good or bad. But it feels like we’re standing on the edge of something—something that could either push the act of design (the verb) to new heights or strip it of the human spark that makes it worth doing. The question isn’t whether AI will change the field; it’s what it will leave behind.

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A few years ago, when I first started teaching at SVA, my old stomping ground, I decided to stretch my course to two years instead of one. I was tired of the revolving door—watching students tiptoe toward an epiphany, a moment of self-revelation, only to be swept away by the end of the semester. Just as they teeter on the edge of understanding what, say, “kerning” does, the class is over, and they’re gone.

Now, they sign up as juniors and stay until graduation. I watch them struggle, get frustrated, fail spectacularly, ask what’s the point in all this, and climb back up—and, if they’re paying attention, begin to hear their own voices rising out of the noise. 

Mastery takes time; it isn’t a sprint. Real growth is a slow burn. Design isn’t about spitting out something quick that kind of works; it’s about creating work that makes people feel—the tangible, tactile things that make people say, 'This is nice,' or 'That is interesting.'

And then sustaining that.

I give them strange subjects to design for. They create an identity for a Bacteria Museum—yes, bacteria—the mundane, invisible forces that are everywhere (literally!) I have them designed for a store named B612, taken from the story The Little Prince. What does the store sell? That’s up to them. These projects are weird, and that’s the point. I want them to get comfortable with the strange. 

One year, I assigned a project inspired by Jiro Ono, the legendary sushi master from Jiro Dreams of Sushi. I asked the students to create a visual identity for an imagined New York City restaurant owned by Jiro himself. But here’s the catch: Jiro’s tiny Tokyo restaurant, with its 10 seats and modest decor, would never expand. He doesn’t care about scaling or franchising. He cares about the taste of his food, the craft, and the ritual of getting each piece of sushi exactly right.

The students struggled. How do you design for someone whose entire philosophy revolves around patience, mastery, and singular focus? They had to look past the usual suspects for what a premium sushi restaurant may look like (you know, something that looks “sophisticated Japanese”) and into the stubbornness of what Jiro does. They had to understand that mastery isn’t just a technical skill—it’s a desire to set your own bars high, not because you have to, but because you want to. 

And no machine can replicate that. 

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Now, fast-forward seven years, and the world looks completely different. Social media is feeding us “content” around the clock. It’s flooded with AI-generated eye candy—'Slop,’ as it’s called. It’s technically impressive, but let’s be honest—it’s stupid.

Every major design platform is incorporating AI into their products. It takes a second to pump out polished visuals with a few clicks. I get it—it’s dazzling, addictively efficient. But efficiency isn’t the point. I think about Jiro Ono, the sushi master, spending his life perfecting each piece of sushi. He’s not in a rush, and he doesn’t care about scaling. He cares about getting it right. In a world where machines are doing more and more for us, it makes me wonder: What does mastery mean now? Does it even matter?

AI mimics, but it doesn’t care. Mastery is obsession—try prompt that. 

Jiro doesn’t just cut fish; he uses decades of knowledge, intuition, and skill to make something unforgettable. AI doesn’t work that way. It processes, but it doesn’t feel. It doesn’t have a point of view.

If you’re under 50—myself included—AI will probably disrupt your career. But here’s the thing: while AI will replace a lot of jobs, the ones that survive in this business will be the ones that require a near-obsessive dedication to craft. 

People pay $300 for Jiro’s sushi not because it’s food but because it’s art. 

Watching algorithms at work, I feel a strange detachment. They can replicate beauty and manufacture it with flawless consistency. But they’ll never know that particular kind of obsession—the kind that keeps you awake at night, redoing something no one else will notice, just for the satisfaction of getting a little closer to the vision in your head. Maybe that’s the difference: we leave pieces of ourselves in the things we make, flaws and all, because we can’t help it. It’s a compulsion, a touch of madness, a stubborn streak that refuses to settle for “good enough.”

So yes, I’ve taken AI courses. And I’m in dialogue with those who’re pioneering new AI capabilities. But I’ll also keep searching for that thing that keeps me up at night. Because at the end of the day, I believe that’s what makes our work ours.