In recent months, we've witnessed a flood of headlines celebrating the democratization of creative work through artificial intelligence. "Anyone can code now!" "Create professional music in minutes!" "AI-generated videos indistinguishable from human-made!" These proclamations suggest a new creative frontier where technical expertise is optional.

Yet a curious pattern emerges when you look more closely at many of these AI success stories.

Behind many viral AI creations stands not a complete novice but an experienced practitioner leveraging AI to enhance their existing skills. The programmer who "effortlessly" created a complex application using AI likely has years of coding experience that helps them prompt effectively, evaluate the generated code, and fix the inevitable errors. The musician who "lets AI compose" often brings decades of musical knowledge to guide, refine, and select the output.

This isn't to diminish the impressive capabilities of modern AI tools. They genuinely reduce barriers to