Standing in Florence, thinking about AI

I was on leave last week. Although the year has just started, I felt like I needed a break.

I visited Florence, which meant I came back more tired than when I left. Physically, it wasn't really a break.

Mentally, I wasn’t prepared for the number of times I asked my friends, “How on earth did they manage to do that stucco work so high up?” while walking through Palazzo Pitti. Or, honestly, how they managed to do it at all.

I’ve always been as curious about history and technique as I am about visuals. I could list all the impressive work I saw, but what I am trying to say is that knowing that the palace took decades to become what it is, shaped by multiple owners, artists, and painters, made me think about how slow art once was. How much time it took to come to life. How much patience, taste, and grandeur it required (pardon my French). Years and years of refinement.

I was gazing up at those stucco works, imagining myself sitting there with a pointing trowel, ensuring an angel's face was proportionate.

I could never.

And why is that?

I do pay attention to details. Most of the time. But I like to work fast. I like to see results quickly. Which is probably why existing in the era of AI-generated graphics feels like a blessing.

Or not?

I’m conflicted about this subject. I think most designers are a little scared of AI and how quickly it learns and adapts (or at least most designers on Reddit seem to be). Beyond the fear of losing our jobs, it’s the constant “use the tool to become better at your job” narrative that drives me slightly insane.

What about juniors? About learning taste, judgment, restraint? Most job applications already expect you to cover more than one area of design, so how much more are we supposed to adapt, pivot, and learn? Where does that leave us?

I won’t lie, I use AI in my job. It’s fast, and sometimes it does exactly what I need without having to learn another Photoshop tool or spend ages improving an image's quality. Maybe I haven’t found all the right tools yet to make my life impressively better, but I’m also still a bit reluctant to go looking for them.

So no, I don’t really have FOMO when it comes to AI (even if some things are undeniably impressive).

So how did I get here from my visit to Florence?

Standing in those Pitti rooms, it felt like millions of years separated my present from that work. How could that kind of art ever translate into prompts or generated outputs? Can intent and depth survive in a world where everything moves faster and faster?

Can AI help us slow down, free up time, recharge, and be more creative because of how fast it is? Or are we quietly losing the space for experimentation and learning because of it?

I know creating frescoes isn’t the same as creating a presentation slide. I probably need to chill. Maybe I don’t need to pick a side yet.

Maybe it’s okay to use AI, question it, be impressed by it, and still feel uneasy. Maybe the goal isn’t to move faster all the time, but to decide when speed actually serves us.

The conclusion here might as well be to use those AI tools just like Pietro da Cortona might have used a pointing trowel, and not as a fresco machine.