Imagine taking the lightweight, privacy-focused appeal of Linux and completely ruining it by hardwiring AI models straight into the OS. Nobody is switching from Windows for more forced AI features.
If it’s a static one click product, I wouldn’t be proud of it either. That’s just slop really.
What I’m thinking of is a process, where some steps are handled by an AI, but the rest is all human. You could use an AI generated background layer in a picture. You could use generated code as a starting point, and modify it to do exactly what you want. You could dump an early draft of a story to an LLM for style polishing. The output would probably be mostly fine, but you would still want to tweak a few things here and there.
If you skip your part, you end up with slop. Sadly, that’s how most people appear to be using AI these days. If you take the time to refine the output to meet your standards, you’re doing it properly. In that case, you should be proud of your work.
Think of it like a team effort. Even though you didn't do all of it, you still did something. That something has value too. For example, building a house is a team effort. The electrician can't be proud of all of it, but they can be proud of making sure the cables, sockets and switches are installed properly. Maybe they can also be happy about the whole house to some extent. Imagine you've worked on the cables of the Sydney Opera House. You would probably feel a little bit proud.