How AI Helped Me with the "Our Values Are" Project
- A.R.
- May 19
- 4 min read
Updated: May 20
Whenever I attend dinner parties or family BBQs these days, it seems inevitable that the conversation eventually turns to artificial intelligence (AI) — especially since I work in tech. Almost instantly, I notice the worried expressions and anxious tones as friends and family share headlines they've encountered: "AI to replace millions of jobs." "AI threatens democracy." "AI discriminates through biases." Both in these personal conversations and across media, the narrative around AI has become increasingly dominated by fear, suspicion, and worst-case scenarios.¹
This persistent negativity creates an atmosphere where we're encouraged to view AI primarily as a threat rather than a tool. Headlines generate clicks when they trigger anxiety, not when they celebrate incremental progress or positive applications. Meanwhile, success stories about how AI is augmenting human creativity and enabling new forms of expression often go untold.²
But there's another side to this story — one where AI serves as a collaborative partner that empowers people to create in ways they couldn't before. My passion project, "Our Values Are," is one such example.
Finding My Creative Voice Through AI Collaboration
As the creator behind the "Our Values Are" project, I've experienced firsthand how AI can unlock creative potential. This initiative, which provides small businesses with a visual way to display their commitment to values like equality, respect, and kindness, simply would not exist without AI assisting me in the creative process.
As an immigrant whose native language isn't English, writing lengthy, nuanced articles about complex topics would have been prohibitively time-consuming. Honestly, I couldn't have done such a good job on my own. The topics around marginalized communities and polarizing political views are complex and sensitive, requiring an empathetic voice and tone that can be challenging to maintain consistently when writing in a second language. The cultural and historical research alone would have made this project impossible for me to complete independently.
Through collaboration with AI, I was able to share my creative ideas, refine concepts through conversation, and produce well-researched, accessible content grounded in legitimate sources. This partnership didn't diminish my creative control — it enhanced it by allowing me to focus on the vision while the AI helped with execution.
The Collaborative Process
Working with AI isn't about pressing a key and watching finished content appear magically. The main Story section of the website alone took several days of back-and-forth collaboration until my creative vision and empathic voice were realized. AI ensured that everything sounds smooth to an English-speaking audience. For the News section, each article could take one to four hours of continuous collaboration with AI to get them just right.
Even the images on each article were created in collaboration with AI, requiring nearly an hour of directed creative input for each. It was amazing to have a visual in my head of what I wanted the article image to represent and then see it happen in front of my eyes.
What I love the most is that visitors to the website can hear me reading the Story section, which is actually my AI-cloned voice. I could have never read the entire Story section and sound so good. Just the ability to have articles read to visitors provides them a great experience and saves me a ton of uncomfortable work.
With one minute of my voice, ElevenLabs cloned my voice, letting visitors hear the content with "almost" my authentic voice.
This process reflected a true partnership. My imagination and creative direction are guided by my values and intent, enhanced by AI's ability to research, organize, and articulate concepts clearly. At each step, I maintained editorial control while leveraging AI's capabilities to overcome my personal limitations.
Democratizing Creativity
Perhaps what excites me most about this experience is its implications for creative expression broadly. AI is democratizing the ability to create compelling, well-researched content regardless of one's native language, subject matter understanding, or available time.³
The "Our Values Are" project stands as proof that AI can be a force for positive creation when guided by human values and vision. It empowered me to bring something meaningful into the world that otherwise might have remained just an idea.
In a media environment so focused on AI's potential harms, we mustn't overlook these transformative benefits. Millions of people will soon use AI to create projects they couldn't accomplish before, potentially changing the world for the better through their unique perspectives and ideas. I believe this collaborative approach to creation will become the norm rather than the exception as more people discover how AI can amplify their creative potential.
The "Our Values Are" project isn't just about the values displayed in the image — it's also a testament to the value of embracing new tools that extend our creative capabilities and amplify our human potential.
Get the Our Values Are image → Display it on your website → Amplify your values!
References
¹ Hickin, R. (2023). AI Coverage Is Mostly Negative. That's a Problem. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/ai-coverage-is-mostly-negative-thats-a-problem/
² Brockman, J. (2023). The Age of AI has begun. Gates Notes. https://www.gatesnotes.com/The-Age-of-AI-Has-Begun
³ Brownlee, J. (2023). How AI is Democratizing Creativity. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnbrownlee/2023/07/26/how-ai-is-democratizing-creativity/