Truly, where is the creative industry headed in a world that seems to be in a constant state of rinse-and-repeat uniformity?

Uniformity, according to the Cambridge Dictionary, is “the quality or fact of being the same, or of not changing or being different in any way.” Uniformity can be police officers all wearing the same standard uniform. Culturally, it can be cookie-cutter houses in a neighborhood painted a “millennial” gray, or politically, uniformity can mean taking a turn for fascism. Either way, its connotation has never been positive, and yet, despite the world of art being what should be considered the antithesis of uniformity, it seems to have wormed its way into the arts industry.

Artificial intelligence—it’s the controversial buzzword that the art world is torn apart by. Does it implement creativity or diminish originality? “AI reads significant amounts of data using algorithms to identify patterns and make decisions,” says Google’s Meta AI. In other words, it pulls from everything around it, every formula and code, in order to generate and spit out an answer.

For the art world, that formulaic routine represents death to the craft itself. Art has historically been a vessel for creatives to rebel against the systemic oppression of peoples, communities, and the planet. It’s a form of expression that no formula or rule can truly understand, much less recreate. So to see AI being used in these spaces can be frustrating for fellow creatives.

Take the viral AI Guess advertisement that was featured in the Vogue U.S. August issue. Guess’s co-founder, Paul Marciano, approached Seraphinne Vallora, an AI-driven marketing agency, in order to create an ad campaign using AI models. In the advertising world, this is a huge deal; in fact, “its website lists one of the benefits of working with them as being cost-efficient because it ‘eliminates the need for expensive set-ups, MUA artists, venue rentals, stage setting, photographers, travel expenses, hiring models,’” BBC’s Yasmin Rufo writes. This use of AI in a campaign eliminates input from real human creatives who would normally be on the set of a shoot, including models, production design teams, and costumes.

David Carson, the contemporary graphic designer and art director of the magazine Ray Gun, is best known for his rejection of typical structural formats of art in the design world. He prefers to think outside the box and try unconventional routes instead. “By contrast, much of today’s digital design—especially in product and interface design—has been flattened into uniformity by frameworks, design systems, and usability standards,” says Itamar Medeiros, a design strategist. Carson’s choice of style is not only different but rebellious—something that conventional graphic designers might scoff at. But this refusal of conformity is more significant than just a design on a zine. It encompasses the entire world of the arts.

In fact, this pattern of uniformity creates a sense of monotony and dullness and is extremely prevalent in the fashion industry as well. As Anna Wintour, the Vogue US editor-in-chief and a fashion tyrant—critics’ words, not mine—stepped down from the magazine giant, the question of what a centralized fashion world looks like is raised. With Wintour pulling strings at the helm, many have critiqued this “imperial leader model,” where the fashion world has grown tired of repetition. “Former employees describe a workplace culture where terror trumped creativity; where Wintour’s personal whims superseded professional judgment,” said Lilian Raji, a contributor to the Forbes article on Anna Wintour’s legacy.

Fashion has always been political, and the homogeneity of the editor-in-chief’s work has dulled the knife of Vogue among the youth who are passionate and embrace the uniqueness and differences of art. “Fashion is about self-expression, loving yourself, and being yourself. She’s a part of the old guard where fashion is about aspiration, inspiration, and admiration,” says Quynh Mai, founder of Qulture agency.

Art should inherently be the contradiction of uniformity. In all forms, it’s a type of inspiration that sparks from being odd, inconsistent, and eccentric.