I’ve worked at the intersection of emerging tech and creative expression for over 25 years - from designing Flash experiments to sensory storytelling, from physical computing to generative systems that still feel like digital alchemy.
The tools? They’ve changed.
Over and over again.
But the real driver - the reason anything has ever mattered - hasn’t.
It’s not intelligence.
It’s not speed.
It’s not automation or scale.
It’s intent.
That quiet, urgent desire to create something meaningful. Beautiful. True.
Or deliberately not.
A knife can cook a meal that feeds a family.
Or take a life.
Fireworks began as joy made visible.
Then became weapons of war.
The tool doesn’t choose.
We do.
We always have
Intent did.
AI Is Not the Author of Meaning
AI will never be heartbroken or awestruck.
It won’t ache with creative doubt.
It won’t experience the full-body rush when an idea finally lands.
It will never know what it means to care so much it hurts.
And that matters.
And that’s why the future doesn’t belong to the fastest or the most optimised.
It belongs to those willing to go deeper.
Because the “why” behind innovation has never come from logic.
It comes from the irrational places.
From grief, from wonder, from memory.
From that strange mix of personal mythology and obsession that makes us us.
Machines can perform.
But they can’t intend.
We Don’t Create Because We Can. We Create Because We Must.
In my creative life - whether crafting campaigns, immersive worlds, or now writing stories - the starting point is never a prompt.
It’s a tension.
A question.
A need to understand something that won’t let go.
The real beginning isn’t technical.
It’s emotional.
We don’t make things because the tools are advanced.
We make them because we’re human - and something inside us is reaching.
Exploration Is Not a Feature. It’s the Point.
This is what AI cannot do.
It can’t wander without purpose.
It can’t chase awe.
It can’t experiment just to feel alive.
But we can.
And that’s where we must stay grounded - not in resistance to AI, but in relationship with it.
Not as its rival, but as its conscience.
Because the real task is not just using the tools.
It’s asking ourselves:
What is my intent?
And is it worthy of what this tool can do?
That’s where the soul of the work lives.
Not in outputs.
Not in optimisation.
But in the kinds of questions only humans ask - and only humans care enough to answer.
That is where innovation begins.
— Alexandra
Welcome to my ‘Humanity in Pixels’ Series
This is a lens, a journal, a small act of resistance.
A reminder that design is culture-making, memory-shaping, and meaning-building.
Let’s design what truly matters,
for now, and for what comes next.
— Best,
Alexandra
Reflections on design, storytelling, and human futures by Alexandra Jugović. © 2025
I liked this read very much. ❤️