There’s a witch hunt underway for anyone who uses AI to make things, which is overshadowing the more important question of whether the generated content is any good. My unpopular opinion is that using technology to unlock creativity is not the real issue. We’ve always done it. The printing press, the synthesizer, the camera, and Photoshop were each accused of killing craft in their day. The real problem is that everything generated by AI is becoming too similar. The content isn’t bad. It is just too predictable.

Math rarely produces a public scandal. The fight between OpenAI and parts of the scientific community over its claimed solution to the Navier–Stokes problem may be the exception. The immediate dispute concerns priority, provenance, and who or what deserves credit for the breakthrough. For most people, that will feel like academic theatre. Look closer, however, and the argument exposes a question that should concern every leader: as AI becomes capable of solving problems once beyond human reach, will it extend our ability to think, or slowly erode our ability to decide what is worth thinking about?

The book left a rare-books dealer with a secret. On a screen, a reporter watched it move through the logistics bloodstream of America until the signal came to rest at VGT3, an Amazon facility in Las Vegas, then went dark. Inside, printed books arrive in bulk. Their bindings are cut away so the loose pages can be scanned faster. The physical volumes are destroyed. The team's logo shows a dinosaur clutching a book in its claws, teeth bared. There is no bonfire, smoke or jeering crowd, only a blade, a scanner and an efficient workflow. Are we watching the last human harvest, or the beginning of a fight over who controls the data that AI's hungry ghosts demand?

The next employee your company hires may not arrive alone. Alongside them will come a personal agent that knows their history, remembers what they forget and is authorized to act in their name. The company will see an external system seeking access. The employee may see part of themselves. That encounter will be the first operational test of distributed intelligence.

Sometimes, as I explain how AI is reshaping the world, I watch as the audience moves through a compressed cycle of grief. Denial appears in crossed arms and sceptical looks. Anger flickers when an example becomes too compelling to dismiss. Then comes bargaining, usually during the questions at the end. Which jobs are safe? When should humans have the final say? What should my children study? Will I get to retire before i have to deal with this?