Yesterday, a pen-and-paper illustrator I met said, "I would never use AI" when I asked them if they used AI to generate their reference art.
They'd hand-drawn this really cool horse and landscape scene, so I asked, "Do you see the whole seen in your head and then put it on paper or how did you decide what to draw?"
They opened iPhoto on their iPhone, opened an image of a horse, long-pressed on the horse, and an outline magically darted around the horse. Then they copied that outlined horse and pasted it onto a landscape image. And, voilà, their reference art.
Easy-peasy. It took all of 60 seconds. Something that we both agreed would have taken mush longer decades ago using Photoshop and manually separating the horse from the background.
They were positive they weren't using AI during that horse outlining process. ChatGPT says they definitely *were* using AI when using iPhone's Visual Look Up + Subject Lift (introduced in iOS 16).
What struck me is:
AI is so embedded in mundane UX tasks, that a person who says "I would never us AI" doesn't realize that AI is saving them a ton of time.
reidwalley / Reid Walley
npub12j…s9mh9
2026-01-06 05:56:56 UTC
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2026-01-06 05:56:56 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "Yesterday, a pen-and-paper illustrator I met said, \"I would never use AI\" when I asked them if they used AI to generate their reference art.\n\nThey'd hand-drawn this really cool horse and landscape scene, so I asked, \"Do you see the whole seen in your head and then put it on paper or how did you decide what to draw?\"\n\nThey opened iPhoto on their iPhone, opened an image of a horse, long-pressed on the horse, and an outline magically darted around the horse. Then they copied that outlined horse and pasted it onto a landscape image. And, voilà, their reference art.\n\nEasy-peasy. It took all of 60 seconds. Something that we both agreed would have taken mush longer decades ago using Photoshop and manually separating the horse from the background.\n\nThey were positive they weren't using AI during that horse outlining process. ChatGPT says they definitely *were* using AI when using iPhone's Visual Look Up + Subject Lift (introduced in iOS 16).\n\nWhat struck me is:\n\nAI is so embedded in mundane UX tasks, that a person who says \"I would never us AI\" doesn't realize that AI is saving them a ton of time.",
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