Artificial intelligence is shifting the landscape for creators everywhere, sparking plenty of valid fear, frustration, and boycotts. But is ignoring the tech doing more harm than good? In this opinion piece, our Head of Commercial at the Coders Guild Francesca Roberts bridges the gap between their two worlds: tech and the arts, tackling the anxieties surrounding AI in the creative sector head-on. Read on to find out why they believe knowing the tools, even the ones you hate, is the only way to truly protect your craft.

I’m a singer, I’ve worked in tech for years, and here’s why I think the creative industry needs to stop avoiding the conversation about AI.

My community is full of artists… poets, performers, musicians. And right now, a lot of them are furious about AI, they’re scared about what it means for their careers.

And I get it. I sit at a strange intersection and I can see this clearly from both sides. I’m an advocate for AI being used to make life easier, but not at the cost of losing creativity. Their concerns are real. Who owns creative work? What’s been scraped without consent? What does this mean for people who actually make a living from making things? If your livelihood depended on this, you’d be scared too.

But here’s the thing I find myself saying over and over again… ignoring this isn’t going to change the fact that it’s happening.

Boycotting a tool doesn’t make the tool go away. Refusing to engage doesn’t protect your work or your income or your industry. It just means you’re not in the room where it happens (if you got the Hamilton reference, you’re in my gang!)

The people who understand this technology are the ones who get to shape how it’s used. That’s just how it works. And right now, a lot of those people are not artists.

What I’ve seen AI actually do for creative people who’ve chosen to use it is that there is a place for it. It does the stuff that stifles creativity. The grant applications. The funding research. The budget spreadsheets. The invoicing. The tax prep at midnight when you’d rather be doing literally anything else. The boring and laborious parts of a creative career that are unavoidable!

And if we can use it well, it saves real time. Time you could spend on the work you love.

So if you’re a musician, a writer, a theatre-maker, a designer, and this whole conversation makes you want to look away – I’d ask you to do the opposite. Learn it anyway. Not because you have to use it. Not because you have to like it. But so you’re making an informed choice. So you can say, with real knowledge behind it, here’s where I draw the line, and here’s what I’ll actually use it for.

Because it’s not going to go away.