James Pain describes five AI-assisted projects that left him dissatisfied because they felt less like his creations than generic outputs wrapped around a small original idea. A digital collectible-card game based on Conway’s Game of Life seemed promising as a free, non-toxic mobile game, but after 60 hours its reassuring copy, rounded design, familiar font, and polished conventions all read as AI-generated. An always-on entertainment channel, with AI-created sets, characters, and scripts, consumed about 85 hours but produced empty, unfunny episodes despite elaborate systems for developing and revising stories. A voice-controlled coding partner responded quickly but could follow commands more readily than collaborate intelligently, so the prototype was abandoned after two hours. An AI-produced technology news channel also failed to make its scripts sound natural or its graphics distinctive.
The disappointment became most personal with a website for Pain’s freelance business: its dark, hacker-themed design and status banner echoed a recognizable template rather than communicating anything individual to prospective clients. Across the projects, he identifies recurring “AI smells” in copy, typography, layouts, colors, and stylistic choices, and finds that removing generic additions is harder than generating them. His central lesson is that high-level delegation can feel exciting but often yields work without substance or personal character. AI remains useful for bounded tasks with clear starts and finishes; using it to create whole products or creative experiences requires restraint and independent judgment.
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