In the push for creative efficiency a new production model has taken hold, powered by tools that promise to streamline everything from ideas to output. But this digital assembly line raises a deeper question: are these systems serving human expression or quietly reshaping it to fit their own algorithmic logic?
The warning comes from Hash Sesay, a filmmaker and creative producer who has spent his career on the front lines of advertising and content creation. With experience leading productions for major brands and managing budgets from $10K to over $1.5M, Sesay has witnessed how the pressure to perform in a crowded digital landscape is fundamentally altering the DNA of creative work. For him, the answer to whether we are being served or shaped is clear, and it starts with a stark new reality for artists.
- The new creative contract: "You're not just painting in your bedroom anymore. Now you need a hook and a formula as a template to ensure your success as an artist," Sesay says. The modern creative process is no longer an act of pure expression but a calculated strategy. "A lot of creators' strategy is now about how you gamify your content, tailoring it to a robotic system so the algorithm will spread it."
- Making them laugh: This shift has created an invisible system with unspoken rules, forcing artists into a new and often frustrating role. Sesay offeres a powerful analogy of a modern comedian whose primary job is no longer just to be funny. "My job has since become, how can I please this robot into liking me just so they can allow me to talk to more people on the platform."
In this new economy, success is not measured by artistic merit, but by cold, hard metrics. It’s counted by attention, and "how many eyeballs and how long people stay on your piece of content." This phenomenon is readily apparent in the music industry, where the 8-minute rock opera has been replaced by the 3-minute pop song, a format optimized to satisfy the metrics of streaming giants.
In tearing down the old human gatekeepers of studios and publishers, Sesay argues we’ve ironically installed a new, non-human one. “There aren't really any gatekeepers per se,” he observed, "other than the algorithm."
- From referee to competitor: The problem deepens as the algorithm evolves from a passive rule-maker into an active participant. "The robot itself is not only making the rules, but now they're actually creating the product," Sesay warns. This escalation is a direct byproduct of the so-called democratization of creative tools, which has flooded the internet with an "inordinate amount of noise and what he calls "information gluttony." AI-generated content and spam pages now compete directly with human artists for the same limited supply of audience attention.
- The human cost: When creative friction is removed in favor of a smooth, homogenized process, something essential is lost. "We lose a lot of the soul of the creative process," Sesay says plainly. He says that soul as the intangible magic born from human collaboration. Drawing from his experience as a producer, he paints a picture of an on-set jam session, a fragile creative space he actively protects. "There's something beautiful about seeing a creative 'jam session' in real life, and I sacrifice to protect that."
The power of this human-centric creation, he argues, is in the final product. "The product that comes out of it has details the untrained eye cannot articulate, but can feel." This authentic, human touch is a refreshing palette cleanse from the taste of algorithm-driven content, and Sesay predicts it will lead to a resurgence of analog, as audiences crave something "real".
This approach stands in stark contrast to the rush for AI-driven shortcuts, which often promise the impossible. He grounds this in a timeless industry maxim: the producer’s trifecta. "There's three things. It can be good, it can be cheap, and it could be fast. And you can only have two." This simple rule exposes the false promise of AI tools that claim to deliver all three at once. "You just can't have the world's fastest this and this without losing something," he cautions.
Ultimately, Sesay argues that creative work is not an afterthought to be optimized away; for any brand or artist. The path forward requires a clear and humanistic principle. He places the burden of maintaining that principle firmly on our shoulders. "It takes humans to create the framework or re-establish or redirect the framework in which we are using AI. My rule is to use AI to heighten human creativity and connectivity, and not replace it."