The new human-crafted Apple Music brand matters in an AI world

It’s a little eye-rolly with the narration, but honestly also lovely in the execution and care. And it made me realize how much I think we’re all going to value this kind of hands-on, human crafting in an era where anything can be generated out of a prompt.

I, like many Ars readers, have feelings about generative AI imagery. It’s feeling increasingly impossible to avoid in daily life. My new favorite term is “slop ghouls.”

One really unfortunate side effect of that persistence is a new natural tendency to be suspicious of everything you see. Was that picture you just saw hand drawn or did someone prompt it into existence with styles stolen from human artists?

I see us increasingly place genuine value on not just human-created craft, but seeing the process behind it that shows the hands at work. This Apple video was a neat bit of promotion, but it also provided the receipts. Real people did real things in the physical world to make the final images and videos.

Some stills from the video showing the process and people

Credit: Apple

The final effect is obviously cleaned up and post-processed. But when I look at it now, I don’t just see Liquid Glass, I see the humans and their time and energy and creativity. To me, at least, that matters. Showing your work, proving the time you put in, I appreciate it. I’m slightly less grumpy for it!

Generative AI is likely here to stay. There’s no stuffing the genie back in the bottle. I probably need to find some peace with that, though I reserve the right to still yell at clouds about it. In the meantime I think we should do more to celebrate human involvement in things and not be shy about showing the process and behind-the-scenes work.