Collaborating with AI for Creative Work: A Framework

AI can generate endless creative options. That's the problem—endless options without judgment creates paralysis. Here's a framework for productive creative collaboration with AI.

Use AI for divergence, yourself for convergence. AI excels at generating variations, exploring possibilities, and suggesting directions you wouldn't consider. Your job is selecting, refining, and deciding. Generate 20 AI options, pick 3 to develop, choose 1 to finish.

Constrain before you create. "Write something creative" produces garbage. "Write a melancholy haiku about urban isolation using only concrete imagery" produces something usable. Constraints aren't limitations; they're the rails that make collaboration productive.

Edit aggressively and without guilt. AI output is raw material, not finished work. The value you add is taste, judgment, and your unique perspective. Nobody cares if the first draft was AI-assisted; they care if the final result is good.