Caitlin Petre “The Starving Artist vs. A.I.: Guess Who Is Winning?” | NY Times Op-ed

On December 16th, 2025, IPK Fellow Caitlin Petre penned an opinion piece for The New York Times titled “The Starving Artist vs. A.I.: Guess Who Is Winning?” Read the excerpt below, then click for the full article.

It would be naïve to think creative workers are playing on anything resembling a level field here, given the jaw-dropping sums being invested in A.I. and the extent to which tech giants have already transformed cultural production. The A.I. industry claims that it wants to democratize creativity, but the real goal is dominance. It can seem inevitable that A.I. will rewrite the future of the arts — a natural consequence of the tools’ technical and economic momentum. But the impacts of technological change are always shaped by human action. If we believe and behave as though A.I. dominance is a foregone conclusion, we risk making it so. Instead, we should support the creative workers who are fighting for a different outcome — and have already landed a few punches.

Read the full article here.

Illustration: Benny Douet/The New York Times