For most of my career, I worked in corporate environments where using tools to make work faster or better was considered a good thing. Templates, automation, benchmarking, editing software, consultants, shared decks. Nobody really questioned whether the work was still “real.” The focus was usually on whether it solved a problem or helped move something forward. Now, AI seems to bring up new questions when creativity is involved.

As someone who writes lyrics and uses AI tools to help turn them into music, I’ve noticed the conversation changes quickly. The question becomes: “Okay, but how much did you actually do?” That question says a lot about how we think about creativity and ownership.

If I write lyrics based on my experiences, emotions, relationships, observations, and perspective, does using technology to help shape the music suddenly make it illegitimate? If someone has ideas, stories, or emotions they want to express but lacks the technical ability to produce music on their own, is the expression somehow less valid?

Maybe yes. Maybe no. I think it’s understandable that people will feel differently about that question.

We don’t usually apply that same standard everywhere else.

• Leaders use speechwriters.
• Companies use automation.
• Photographers edit images.
• Marketing teams reuse frameworks and templates.
• Executives rely on teams to shape presentations and strategy.

We still consider the thinking, judgment, and vision behind the work valuable.

Creative work feels more personal. I wonder if that’s part of why people react more strongly to AI in these spaces. Do we associate authenticity with effort? If something took years to learn or was difficult to produce, does it feel more legitimate?

For people whose identity is closely tied to specialized creative or technical skills, this understandably can feel uncomfortable.

There’s another side to it too. A person can have meaningful ideas without having the technical skills to fully execute them alone.

Before AI tools, most of the lyrics I wrote would have stayed in notebooks or random notes on my phone. I didn’t have the ability to turn them into full songs.

The ideas were there. Some were in the form of poems. Some were rough song concepts. I even had a full draft of a musical written. All of these words, with no way to actually bring any of it to life in a way that felt bigger than on paper.

Those notes just sat there for years.

That’s part of what makes this conversation complicated. AI lowers barriers that used to exist around access, cost, training, and technical ability. Some people experience that as lowering quality. Others experience it as finally being able to express something that was previously out of reach.

I don’t think AI replaces human perspective, taste, or emotional experience. There will be no shortage of content. What people connect with will still matter.

People still respond to honesty.
To perspective.
To emotion.
To something that feels like it came from a real place.

For me, the ideas and lyrics were always there, but the skills to turn them into finished music weren’t. Maybe that means I “shouldn’t be able to” turn poems into songs or lyrics into music because I’m not a trained musician. Or maybe it just means the definition of what counts as “making” is expanding.

I don’t feel strongly about one side of the argument. I understand why someone with deep technical training might not value work created this way. I also think it’s interesting that even in traditional music, people perform songs written by others all the time. The voice is theirs, but the writing often isn’t.

Maybe this isn’t really about AI at all. Maybe it’s about how we decide what part of creation we’re actually valuing.

Lyrics Channel on YouTube: StudioPlaybyAYA

Additional Reading:

• Collective Illusions by Todd Rose
• Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
• The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth
• Barking Up the Wrong Tree: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Success Is (Mostly) Wrong
• Plays Well with Others: The Surprising Science Behind Why Everything You Know About Relationships Is (Mostly) Wrong
• The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life
• Leaders Eat Last

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