TS;GM (too short, gimme more)?
A graphic designer, for example, is knowledgeable about how people understand and feel the things they see. They have developed relevant skills over time. They are good at making things that send complex messages that are quickly understood with an emotional punch.
Secondarily, they know how to use various graphic design tools. Wait, that’s too high. Tertiary? I don't know. What comes after tertiary?
If you, someone who is not a graphic designer (pretend with me if you are), finds a graphic design automation system that can do all the tool work for you, you haven’t in any meaningful way solved a significant problem.
What you could make before using the automation system wasn’t all that good. It likely sucked, but in the nicest possible way. In the way I suck at crochet, running, remembering names, and, as my kid taking chess classes regularly demonstrates, chess.
And what you make after will continue to suck.
The Work of Learning
I hear a lot of people call a creative professional’s honed skill “taste” as though it’s innate; lucky people have it and the rest of us don’t. I’ve never found that a sufficient or satisfying explanation.
I love one of the chapters in Twyla Tharp’s book The Creative Habit. She explains one of the many ways she practices to be a better dance choreographer. She observes people’s behavior and takes notes on everything she notices. Then clears her mind, reads her notes, and compares the feelings triggered by the notes.
Did her notes capture the original observed feelings?
If her notes didn’t trigger similar feelings, she missed something. A gesture was intuitively noticed that caused her to feel a particular way, but she couldn’t capture it in writing. She could do better.
She tries again. And again. And again. And again.
She does this exercise to develop her skills. She reached legendary choreographer status because she was better than many of her peers at understanding what is emotionally expressed through movement.
This is not taste. It’s deliberate practice. It’s purposeful effort.
It’s work.
The Skill of the Worker
If you, someone who is not a trained choreographer (pretend with me if you are), found a choreography automation system that did all the tool work for you, would any dance routine you “create” be broadly successful?
No.
It will suck and that’s all that it will do. Why? Because you don’t know the first thing about expressing emotion through movement. Would liking what was produced with automation tools have any bearing on its broader success?
Again, no.
You, someone without the corresponding skills, wouldn’t know how to evaluate the quality of the work. You would eventually try something and like it. And because it pleases you, you will believe it will please everyone else.
It won’t.
Will it please a few? Probably. A lot? It might. A majority? Doubtful.
Is it possible to make something of high quality for a broader audience without knowing how? Sure. In the same way winning the lottery is possible. Buying a lottery ticket can even be fun — the imaginary thrill of choosing what you’d do with the money may be worth the price of a ticket. Unfortunately, it’s not an effective long-term strategy.
Feedback and Attention
Does it work for the broader audience it was intended for? How do you know? What processes and mechanisms have you put into place to find out? Doing this consistently, honestly, and with humility is the only way to develop broadly relevant skills.
Everywhere I look people are somewhere between irritated and disgusted by what is being made with various automation tools. The makers respond by blaming the people that don’t get it.
“But I like it! What’s wrong with them?”
This isn’t a rigorous approach to understanding the quality of a system’s output. It’s LARPing expertise while ignoring legitimate feedback.
Stop ignoring the loud, pervasive, and ever-present feedback because it clashes with your personal preferences. Because it contradicts what you think should work. Because you feel productive. You’re not being a professional. You’re being a temporarily empowered poseur.
Being a poseur is a choice.
And poseurs suck (in the lamest possible way).