AI for makers: three jobs worth handing over, one that will cost you

Conclusion: AI should not create for you; it should take chores off you. Three jobs are worth handing over — multilingual copy, support templates, and turning your scattered material into structured content. One must never be handed over: authorship — the story, the judgement, the signature.

First, why so many makers dislike AI

The dislike is not sentiment; it is correct:

1. Taste gets averaged. Models output the most common kind of good, while craft value lives in what is not common.
2. Content homogenises. Ten shops on one street running the same sentence patterns; the buyer goes numb by the third.
3. Trust gets diluted. When looks-real can be mass-produced, real itself becomes the scarce thing.

“Is the need purely imagined / is it big enough / are my sources correct / is my judgement real…” — from my own notes (redacted), a self-audit checklist

The checklist applies to AI as well: for every sentence it gives you, ask whether it is true and whether you can stand behind it. If you cannot stand behind it, do not put your name on it.

Three jobs worth handing over

1. Multilingual copy (best value)

Write the facts first, in your own language: materials, dimensions, process steps, how it should and should not be used, why you made it that way. Then have it translate and polish into English.

• Upside: your craft detail survives and English buyers understand it.
• The rule: facts first, language second. The reverse (it invents English, you guess at it) is a disaster.

2. Support and after-sales templates

Returns, shipping times, custom orders, FAQ — repetitive work that needs stable wording. Have it draft from your policy, then rewrite each line into your voice.

• Upside: you stop retyping, and the wording is consistent.
• The rule: the final wording is yours, not the model’s.

3. Turning scattered material into structured content

You have process photos, workshop notes, buyer questions. Have it organise them into a product page structure, an FAQ, a shoot list, a content calendar.

• Upside: the step from having material to being publishable is the one that eats people.
• The rule: the material is yours; the tool only arranges it.

The one thing that will cost you

Do not outsource authorship. The judgement behind a piece, the trade-offs, why you did it this way, what you refused — that is what buyers pay a premium for. Letting AI invent a better-sounding artisan story looks like optimisation and is actually trading your scarcity for reproducibility.

In one line: AI can write your manual. It cannot write your signature.

A workflow you can copy

1. After finishing a piece, record five facts: material, size, hours, hardest part, who it is for.
2. Have it expand those five facts into one native-language description and one English description.
3. Edit line by line: delete what does not sound like you, add what only you know.
4. Publish. Note what you changed, and give it better input next time.

Done this way, AI is an amplifier. Done the other way, it is a substitute — and substitutes carry no premium.