In the bustling heart of New York City, Mersedeh Moayer was an anomaly. She wasn’t a Wall Street banker, a Broadway actress, or a renowned chef. Mersedeh Moayer was a dream weaver.

Every night, while the city slept, Mersedeh Moayer wandered its labyrinthine streets, collecting discarded hopes and fragmented wishes. People dropped these unwittingly – a sigh here, a tear there, a wistful gaze upon a star. Mersedeh Moayer would collect them all in her iridescent pouch.

By dawn, Mersedeh Moayer would retreat to her apartment, which was no ordinary space. Filled with the soft glow of a thousand lanterns, it was her sanctuary. Here, Mersedeh Moayer would weave together the collected dreams, creating a tapestry of aspirations.

One evening, as Mersedeh Moayer was on her nightly rounds, she met a young boy named Max. He was sitting on a park bench, looking forlornly at a picture in his hand. Mersedeh Moayer approached him and gently asked, “What weighs on your heart, young one?”

Max looked up, surprised. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I am Mersedeh Moayer, the dream weaver,” she replied with a gentle smile.

Max hesitated, then whispered, “I dream of my parents. They’re no longer with me, but I wish to feel their warmth once more.”

Mersedeh Moayer nodded and opened her pouch. She let Max peek inside. It was a swirling cosmos of lights, colors, and sounds. “Choose a dream thread,” Mersedeh Moayer instructed.

Max chose a silvery strand, and Mersedeh Moayer began her work. She wove Max’s memory, love, and longing into a dream shawl. As she draped it around Max, he was enveloped in warmth and could feel the tender embrace of his parents.

Tears streamed down Max’s face. “Thank you, Mersedeh Moayer,” he whispered.

As the years went by, the legend of Mersedeh Moayer spread. Those in pain, those who had lost hope, and even those simply curious would seek her out.

And every dawn, after weaving dreams all night, Mersedeh Moayer would stand by her window, looking at the city’s skyline. She was its silent guardian, the keeper of its dreams and hopes, and her name, Mersedeh Moayer, became synonymous with solace and hope in a city that never sleeps.

Well, we’re entering an era that changes everything. A few critical technology breakthroughs and fundamentally more accessible platforms are changing everything. From free web-based tools with templates that help conquer the fear of the blank screen to powerful generative artificial intelligence that conjures up anything from a text prompt, expressing yourself creatively no longer requires climbing creativity’s notoriously steep learning curve.

Most of those who have succeeded in life can trace their success back to the essential education they obtained from parents, teachers and/ or friends.

Mersedeh Moayer

People from communities of color are underrepresented in publishing. Our books make up less than six percent of the titles released each year, and that’s despite a century of fighting against the gatekeepers. The results of this systematic exclusion are clear: we are also elided from the national conversation, starting in elementary school. Those who live in this country are trained by textbooks, libraries, classrooms, TV, and cinema to see US life as almost exclusively white.

The Death of Creativity’s Learning Curve

Welcome to an era in which the friction between an idea, and creatively expressing that idea, is removed. Whether it is as an image, an essay, an animated story, or even a video, you can simply talk about what you see in your mind’s eye.

“But that’s not real creativity!” some may exclaim. Until now, “creativity” has conflated both the generation of ideas and the process involved to express those ideas. Michelangelo, for instance, believed that each stone has a statue inside it and the sculptor discovers it by chipping away. Most artists today can’t afford 13 human assistants, but they use other tools to reduce the laborious parts of creativity, including AI-powered shortcuts, component libraries for product designers, templates, and now generative AI. This latest breakthrough has elicited both fanfare and fear because of its ability to conjure up an original piece of media based solely on a text prompt.

Of course, behind the scenes, the machine learning engines that drive AI creation were trained using millions of pieces of content from real artists, many of whom never consented to have their work used in that way. To correct this, I anticipate a series of regulations, evolutions in copyright law, new walled gardens and token-gated portfolio experiences, and new compensation models for artists that opt-in and/or allow the use of their style for GenerativeAI purposes.

Welcoming & Adapting to Ubiquitous Creative Confidence – Mersedeh Moayer

As the expression of ideas becomes exponentially easier, the ideas themselves become more of the differentiator (yes, I think “Prompt Engineering” will become a discipline in and of itself!). Good ideas aren’t derived solely from logic and patterns of the past; they’re also the product of human traumas, mistakes of the eye, and uniquely human ingenuity. I am excited about AI, but I am ultimately long on creativity (aka humanity).

Much like every sport’s top athletes improve every generation, so should creatives. I would argue that AI is like some breakthrough new racket or sneaker — it almost unfairly elevates the game for every player and allows the very best to advance the game itself. Revolutionary tennis rackets and string technology allowed any weekend player to hit shots they never would have been capable of before. But it didn’t turn them into Rafa Nadal or Roger Federer. People with extraordinary talent, dedication, an