81: Where I Actually Stand on AI

Where I Actually Stand on AI A week or so ago a small confession appeared in the newsletter - a piece called "Cat Out of Bag" about why the typos stay in, and why that matters more than it sounds like it should. That piece ended with a promise: this topic deserved a real conversation, not a paragraph hiding inside an email. This is that conversation. Where AI gets used in this business, where it absolutely does not, and exactly why the line sits where it does - no hedging, no polite public version of the answer. The episode opens with a story from early in a thirty-year career in the garment industry, when CAD systems first entered the picture and provoked the exact same fear, resistance, and false hope that AI is provoking right now. It turns out that story predicts almost everything happening today. This episode digs into why it was never really about the tool - using money as the clearest example of how any powerful tool simply magnifies the character already present in the person using it - and gets specific about an actual day-to-day workflow: research, organizing scattered thoughts, brainstorming, building SOPs, and a sounding board, all without a single piece of the actual creative work ever coming from anywhere but the maker's own hands. It also makes a detailed case for exactly what guarantees human creativity holds ground nothing generated can occupy - including a pointed prediction about where heavy AI reliance is actually headed, and why the reckoning for it is already built into how these systems work. The VirginiaLeighStudio Home page: https://www.virginialeighstudio.com The Fabric & Fiber Studio: https://www.virginialeighstudio.com/thestudio Chapters 00:00 - Cat Out of Bag - The Podcast Episode That Was Promised 02:42 - Where the Line Actually Is: Business Tool, Never Creative Work 04:37 - The CAD Story: A Tool Transition Already Lived Through Once 08:43 - It Was Never About the Tool 09:11 - The Money Analogy: Why Tools Magnify Character, Not Instill It 10:29 - Addressing the Disdain Head-On 11:59 - The Actual Workflow: What This Looks Like Day to Day 15:30 - What Guarantees Human Work Holds Ground AI Cannot Occupy 19:34 - Why These Systems Are Built to Average, Not Excellence 21:19 - The One Thing Nothing Generated Can Ever Feel 23:05 - The Sameness Problem: Where Heavy Reliance Is Actually Heading 26:24 - The Magnifying Glass Always Shows Who You Already Were Connect with Virginia: Website = https://www.virginialeighstudio.com Instagram = https://www.instagram.com/virginialeighstudio/ Facebook = https://www.facebook.com/virginialeighstudio