So be the one who gets copied
Perfecting a copy of the current trend will not pay; the machine wears trends out fast. Make something new. Be the one who gets copied. Own the idea, borrow the execution.
If you spend your effort perfecting a copy of the current trend — the same website look, the same brand style, the same product pattern — it will not pay off.
All of this points to one practical move.
If you spend your effort perfecting a copy of the current trend — the same website look, the same brand style, the same product pattern — it will not pay off. The machine can produce that copy too, in volume, and it will wear the trend out fast.
So the better path is the harder one. Make something new. Be the one who gets copied, rather than the one copying.
This does not mean every surface must be new. Adapting and applying existing forms is honest, useful work, and most of us live in that middle ground. But someone has to make the original gesture that keeps the whole cycle turning. With AI, that role matters more, not less, because the bottleneck has moved upstream to the moment of genuine novelty.
Be the one who gets copied: own the idea, borrow the execution, keep seeding.
If you spend your effort perfecting a copy of the current trend — the same website look, the same brand style, the same product pattern — it will not pay off.
The machine can produce that copy too, in volume, and it will wear the trend out fast.
Be the one who gets copied, rather than the one copying.
Here is where it lands for your work. Your originality does not live in the handcraft of every pixel. It lives in the decision of what to make and why.
If you work in judgment, creativity, or design, that decision is your real contribution now. Borrow the execution. Own the idea. And keep putting new ideas into the world, because that is the one input the whole system cannot do without.
The machine can produce that copy too, in volume, and it will wear the trend out fast.
Be the one who gets copied: own the idea, borrow the execution, keep seeding new ideas.
Perfecting a copy of the current trend will not pay; the machine wears trends out fast. Make something new. Be the one who gets copied. Own the idea, borrow the execution.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Appropriation is Not New: The Eternal Return of the Vanguard”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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