tsevis

I wrote this reflection after more than 2 years of building creative tools with LLM collaboration. Curious if others see the shift from 'how we code' to 'what we build' as meaningful.

Everyone's asking whether AI will replace designers. It's a boring and wrong question. I bought my first Mac at 26 back in 1992. Used Photoshop 1. Nobody taught me—it didn't exist in schools yet. Same with web design. Same with smartphones. Now, same with AI. The pattern isn't new. The panic is. After three decades of watching tools evolve and render themselves obsolete, I've come to a simple distinction: there's your compass (why you create) and there's your handbook (how you create). The compass stays. The handbook keeps getting rewritten. This is a talk I gave to design students in Cyprus about fear, time as capital, and why the designers who can actually draw will be the most valuable people in the room. No predictions. No manifestos. Just lessons from the laboratory of a working life. The complete speech is here: https://tsevis.com/creativity-in-the-era-of-machine-intellig... I tried to include some further reading useful sources as well to get familiar with applied psychology terms as well as some computer history.

This is also true.

+1!

I’m a White, Greek man, 58 years old, living in Southeastern Europe between Greece and Cyprus. Until my 40s, the world - at least in Europe - didn’t feel divided by trivial issues like “what counts as hate speech.” There was always a small racist minority, but the majority of people generally respected a politically correct language—not as oppression, but as a way not to harm others. Nobody felt “silenced” by avoiding harmful words. Then came the hyperboles and the rigid rules you describe. To me, these are very similar to the poor-quality AI filters I discuss in my article: they judge without context. But judging requires more than scanning words—it requires understanding how, why, when, and under what circumstances something is said. What you’ve experienced—and thank you for sharing—is the result of bad, simplistic policy created by people who haven’t truly tried to understand or adapt. Human beings, societies, even nature itself, are complex systems. They can’t be reduced to mechanical yes/no rules. That’s the heart of my article. And what I truly believe—as an eternal optimist—is that we can get to a place of smarter filters and smarter ways to coexist. It will take time, patience, and sincere effort. But it’s possible.

True. The funny thing is, when I posted my article on r/artificialintelligence, the system automatically labeled it as NSFW. Proof that the filters themselves could use a little more intelligence. https://www.reddit.com/r/ArtificialInteligence/comments/1myi...

I agree. For me, political correctness was originally an empathetic code of expression. I’ve never felt the need to provoke or ridicule another group of people. Of course, it did reach a point of hyperbole—where even historic artworks were misread as offensive or racist.

As the Greeks said: “Μέτρον ἄριστον”—balance is best. We don’t need to provoke just to indulge our worst instincts, but we also need tolerance for expressions that aren’t perfectly curated.

That said, my article isn’t really about political correctness. It’s about low-quality AI filters that can’t read context, and the corporate shortcuts that rely on them. My point isn’t to rant or complain, but to suggest a new era of content moderation—one that’s smarter, fairer, and more democratic.

Thank you for this beautifully paradoxical take: that the less we “need” AI, the more urgently we should be thinking about how we use it.

And you’re absolutely right—the best things in life rarely run on silicon. Though, if someone does teach a language model to tune a Baby Grand, I’d subscribe to that repo just for the README.

As for theology and technology: there’s something timeless in what you quoted from Pope Francis. I’m reminded of another text—the Ladder of Divine Ascent by Saint John Climacus (7th century). He speaks of διάκρισις—discernment—as the highest spiritual faculty. Maybe that’s what we lack when our friends can’t tell real photos from fakes.

My project AntA.I.os is actually rooted in myth too—Antaeus, who lost his power when lifted off the Earth. For me, the Earth here means context, ethics, and culture. When we create—or compute—without grounding, we drift.

So whether AI brings us closer to the “common good” or just a sharper business model might depend not on the tools, but on who’s holding them—and why.

Thanks again for the Vatican link. Nothing like sacred scrolls and system prompts side by side.

As AI-generated content floods the web, how do we preserve human originality? My article explores:

Why "grounded creativity" (rooted in real-world experience) matters more than ever How AI can enhance—not replace—human creativity Practical ways to stay original in an age of synthetic content

Thoughts? Would love to hear the HN perspective.

  ┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
  │                    GROUNDED CREATIVITY                │
  │           (Human originality in the AI era)           │
  └───────────────┬──────────────────────┬────────────────┘
                  │                      │
  ┌───────────────▼──────┐    ┌──────────▼─────────────┐
  │   WHY IT MATTERS     │    │   HOW AI CHANGES IT    │
  ├──────────────────────┤    ├────────────────────────┤
  │ ▪ Loss of human      │    │ ▪ AI as a tool, not    │
  │   uniqueness         │    │   a replacement        │
  │ ▪ Over-reliance on   │    │ ▪ Synthetic vs.        │
  │   synthetic content  │    │   authentic creation   │
  └───────────────┬──────┘    └──────────┬─────────────┘
                  │                      │
  ┌───────────────▼──────┐    ┌──────────▼─────────────┐
  │ PRACTICAL STRATEGIES │    │   FUTURE OUTLOOK       │
  ├──────────────────────┤    ├────────────────────────┤
  │ ▪ Cultivate deep     │    │ ▪ Hybrid creativity    │
  │   real-world         │    │   (Human+AI synergy)   │
  │   experiences        │    │ ▪ Ethical boundaries   │
  │ ▪ Use AI for         │    │                        │
  │   augmentation, not  │    │                        │
  │   imitation          │    │                        │
  └──────────────────────┘    └────────────────────────┘

I will see what I will do. However the problem is much bigger. Amazon should take down a shop when they know that the seller is simply changing the ASIN. But this isn't the only problem. I tried to report 10 different items. It was possible to report just 3. Their system isn'r recognising the other 7 ASINs. So Amazon really has a system that makes difficult to impossible to find your right. Hiring an attorney costs money. They know it and this is why they are making it as the only option.

Me, the artist tried to report them again. It's impossible. I am getting the message that the ASIN or URL is wrong. Amazon should simply shut down the seller's shop because they know that he is simply selling counterfeit products. A serious company would do this. I believe they simply chose not to. Because they compete with other unethical companies who are probably worse. I hope that we the people start realising how bad these policies are and protect ourselves.

I have reported the item on their correct page. By the way you can try to report it yourself right now. You cannot. You simply get the message that the ASIN or URL is wrong.

Exactly! So Amazon makes money from our work. And they even makes us lose time with reporting items that simply change numbers. What a shame!

I am the artist who's work is sold illegally on Amazon. There is no excuse for Amazon. Absolutely none. 0! I have reported the URL. It never changed. I don't know when the ASIN changed but the URL remained the same. The new ASIN or URL cannot be reported. I am getting the message that the ASIN is wrong whenever I am trying to report it. I am getting silly answers from silly people who are bullshiting me. They have a seller who is selling fake products. What a serious company does is to close his store. Especially when they learn that an item that is take off is up again. After days of complains I decided to complain on Facebook. They are bullshiting me there as well. It's a real shame!