Creativity is like a muscle. The more you use it, the stronger it becomes. The less you use it, the weaker it gets. AI tempts us to put that muscle down and let the machine do the lifting. At first the results can feel powerful, but over time the habit creates dependency and decline.
When writers ask AI to craft their plots or when designers lean on it for layouts, they stop working through the hard part of the process. Struggle sharpens skill. Without it, the edge dulls. Over time, people lose the ability to generate ideas from scratch.
It is like walking into a gym and expecting a machine to do your push-ups for you. The reps get done, but you gain no strength, no stamina, and sometimes you walk away feeling weaker than before.
AI is built on what already exists. It pulls from the past and rearranges it into something familiar. That makes the output feel safe, but it also makes it predictable.
Instead of work that challenges, surprises, or moves people forward, we get endless variations of what has already been done. Breakthroughs demand risk and discomfort. Machines are trained to avoid both.
Innovation does not come from ease; it comes from struggle. It comes from facing a blank page or canvas and working through the frustration until something new takes shape.
When AI erases that struggle, the brain relaxes. It stops flexing, stops reaching, stops imagining. Instead of creators, people become consumers of generated ideas, scrolling through options rather than shaping their own.
Creativity is not only about output. It is about how it changes the way we think. Problem-solving in design builds resilience. Wrestling with words builds clarity. Pushing through failure builds persistence.
If we let machines carry those loads, the habits that make us human start to fade. Patience, imagination, and curiosity all weaken when we stop exercising them.
AI is not the killer of creativity. Our dependence is. If we treat it as a shortcut for every challenge, we will weaken the very skills that make us capable of breakthrough.
But if we treat it as a tool, something to extend rather than replace our own effort, the muscle of creativity can keep growing.
History remembers the ideas that endure. Not the shortcuts, not the imitations, but the breakthroughs that came from human struggle and vision.
The choice is ours: we can let the creative muscle atrophy, or we can keep training it. AI should not be the weight that replaces the workout, but the tool that helps us lift higher.