Simplification

When observing the history of labour and creation, a recurring pattern becomes visible: each time technological or procedural progress simplifies the process of making something, a moral judgement emerges against that simplification. The objection is rarely framed as mere difference or efficiency; instead, the simplified process is often perceived as less legitimate. An easier path to a result becomes morally suspect.

This reaction is not confined to a single field. It has appeared in production, craftsmanship, art, writing, and nearly every domain where technology has altered the way work is done. Yet although it presents itself as a defence of values, it is necessary to examine what truly motivates it.

Part of the resistance comes from those whose status was tied to the previous, more complex process. When technology reduces the level of required skill, time, or effort, it also redistributes prestige. What was once accessible only to a few becomes accessible to many. In that shift, individuals may experience a loss of exclusivity and, with it, symbolic position. The moral argument then masks a status discomfort.

Another layer of resistance stems from a deeper but philosophically problematic belief: that the difficulty of a process grants moral value to its result. According to this logic, a work that demanded more time, effort, or suffering possesses greater legitimacy than one produced more efficiently.

Such a position assumes that suffering is constitutive of value. Yet this is difficult to justify philosophically. If simplification enables the same, or even greater, level of expression, idea, or meaning, then the hardship of the path cannot serve as a sufficient criterion of worth. Suffering may accompany creation, but it does not follow that it is necessary, nor that it guarantees value.

Technological simplification therefore does not diminish the work; it alters the conditions of its production. It shifts emphasis away from procedural skill toward concept, intention, and direction. For this reason, resistance to simplification often uses moral language while addressing an ontological shift: a transformation in what it means to create.

Contemporary resistance to AI-generated art and AI-assisted writing can be understood as the latest phase of this historical pattern. The arguments presented are rarely new. It is said that the process is too easy, that the result is unearned, that technology erodes authenticity. At their core lies the same assumption: that difficulty legitimises creation.

AI, however, does not introduce a morally distinct principle. Rather, it radicalises an already existing trajectory of simplification. Like every technology before it, it changes the mode of production but does not eliminate idea, intention, or conceptual direction. If a work is guided by thought rather than tool, then a change of tool does not annul authorship.

In this sense, AI may be understood as a medium, much like pigment, the camera, or digital software before it. The legitimacy of a medium does not derive from its complexity but from its use. Technology may generate visual or textual material, yet orientation, conception, and selection remain human acts.

For this reason, moral disqualification of AI creation requires additional justification that is seldom provided. If the objection rests on the ease of process, it relies on the already unstable criterion of suffering. If it rests on technological mediation, it would need to extend equally to all prior media.

The question of transparency nevertheless remains open. In certain contexts, such as competitions or frameworks that explicitly define medium, precise disclosure of production method is justified. In such cases, transparency is not a moral imperative but a procedural requirement.

Outside these contexts, another question emerges: to what extent is an artist obliged to technically disclose the process of making a work? A painter does not list brush type, pigment manufacturer, or stroke sequence. The work is identified medially, oil on canvas, acrylic, photography.

If AI art belongs to digital art, it remains to be considered whether it demands a higher degree of procedural disclosure than other media, and on what grounds.

Resistance to simplification therefore speaks not only about technology, but about how labour, authorship, and legitimacy are valued. Each new technological threshold reopens the same question: does value reside in the difficulty of the process, or in the idea the work carries?

The answer to that question shapes how contemporary forms of creation will be understood.

Patrick