Which Creative Tribe Will You Join: Fast, Weird, or Invisible?
It won’t be long before someone drops this bomb in a room full of scribblers: "AI just wrote our cold open in three minutes." Dead silence. Then nervous laughter. Then the kind of existential dread you usually reserve for 3 AM. But after 20+ years in the narrative trade, from Lost to VALORANT, I'm not panicking. I'm watching a creative ecosystem splitting into three distinct tribes.
Tribe One: The Speed Freaks
These creators aren't just using AI, they're weaponizing it. They've turned their entire creative process into a content machine gun. Watch them work:
- Story concepts? They're chaining prompts to generate 50 variations by lunch, then A/B testing hooks with real audiences
- Character arcs? They feed AI their story bible and get mapped emotional beats for entire seasons before you finish your coffee
- Dialogue polish? Real-time, as they type, with AI analyzing the speech patterns of specific actors or demographic targets
They're not pursuing perfection. They're flooding the zone with ideas, prototypes, and iterations. One writer I know uses AI to scan social media trends, then generates 20 story concepts that tap into what audiences are craving right now. It's as if they've strapped a rocket engine to their imagination and hit the gas.
Tribe Two: The Humans
On the flip side, you've got creators doubling down on what makes them irreplaceable—their weird, specific, gloriously human perspective. These folks aren't racing the machines. They're going places machines can't follow:
- Stories pulled from personal obsessions only they understand
- Voice so distinctive you'd recognize it in a crowd of a thousand
- Emotional truth that hits like a gut punch
Think about the writers who made Fleabag or Atlanta. That's not algorithm-friendly content. That's pure human weirdness, and it's magic.
Tribe Three: The Vanishing Act
And then there's everyone else, the ones trying to split the difference, using AI a little bit, being personal-ish, and keeping one foot in tradition, one in innovation. They think they're being smart, but they're actually becoming invisible.
Maybe you're testing the waters, figuring out which path feels right. But the creative world isn't waiting for you to decide. While you're exploring, the Speed Freaks are shipping and the Humans are building cult followings. I've watched entire creative departments fade away slowly, then all at once. Because lukewarm doesn't survive seismic shifts.
The Mirror Effect
AI isn't replacing creativity. It's amplifying whatever you already bring to the table.
- Feed it generic ideas? You'll get generic output at light speed.
- Feed it your personal obsessions, your specific voice, your unique angle? Now you're cooking with rocket fuel.
When we built the transmedia universe for Heroes, we weren't just making a TV show; we were creating a mythology that lived across comics, games, and web content. That approach is more relevant than ever. But only if you know what story you're actually telling. So here's my advice after watching this creative earthquake happen in real time:
Go Full Cyborg: Master these tools like your career depends on it (because it does). Learn to generate, iterate, and ship at machine speed. Out-hustle everyone.
Go Full Human: Get weirder. Get more specific. Make stuff only you could make. Lean into the things that make you irreplaceable.
Just don't try to play it safe in the middle. That's creative quicksand.
The Question That Matters
What kind of storyteller are you? This will determine whether you're still here in five years. Are you a creator who can harness these tools to build worlds faster than anyone thought possible, or one whose voice is so distinctly yours that no algorithm could ever replicate it? Both paths are viable; the middle ground isn't. Whichever tribe you join, always be scribbling.
