When your kids watch my videos and sing my songs, they’re enjoying the creativity of HI (human intelligence), not AI. I like making art and I don’t want to turn that over. In my estimation, young humans are also better served by content made by other humans.

The children’s media of my youth had Jim Henson’s thumbprints all over it. He shaped that time and culture in powerful ways (and we could sure use him now).  He adored television and created works that respected, challenged, and delighted kids. The “creative soil” which my work grows from is infused with his quirky ethos, joyful optimism, and zany creativity.

Like Henson, I embraced technology early. Rather than DESCRIBE throngs of butterflies in Mexico or brittle eagle eggs impacted by DDT, I wanted to SHOW them. So back in 2007 (about year 14-15 of my career), I got a projector and screen and licensed images and clips. I could immediately feel the difference in my audiences’ focus and comprehension.

Soon I figured out how to use PowerPoint to “animate” my songs: a rapping cattail, a swimming tadpole and more. 4-5 years later, I learned Adobe AfterEffects, which is much more precise and flexible, to make a clapping ocelot and a rockin’ mako shark.

These days, I’m filming lots of “crafty stuff”—construction paper fruit bat, paperbag cheetah, crochet moose puppet—which requires its own set of technical skills.

So, yes, I love and use technology, but handing over the creative part to AI just isn’t my way. Yes, I’d be more efficient, but art is rarely, if ever, about efficiency.

I don’t ignore AI entirely. I’ll probably run this article by Claude. It helps me a lot in my marketing efforts and I can see maybe using AI to do some of the tedious tasks in editing and animation, but the ideas and the images come from me. I’ll let you know if that changes.

I know AI is already changing the world and I hear the tech evangelists (Claude’s term) telling me I need to embrace it or get left behind, but I think my fellow humans will keep responding to this human’s creativity and that’s all I ask for.