Is AI your tool, or your crutch?

As a graphic designer, and the founder of an education company that was an early pioneer in using AI (before ChatGPT hit the scene) to give students feedback on their writing and coach them on developing their independent critical thinking, I now spend a lot of time thinking about what still matters for humans to learn now that AI can do so much.

In education, just like in every other industry, the discussion around AI seems to have organized itself into two camps: “All-In On AI”, or “Never AI”.

The “All-In On AI” camp says, “AI is here to stay. Kids are going to use it when they enter the professional workforce. They need to learn how to work with it in school.”

The “Never AI” camp says, “Kids need to learn the foundational skills without relying on AI. If they skip right to using AI, they’ll be totally dependent on it and cheat with it, so we should keep AI out of the classroom at all costs.”

I think both camps are right, and both camps are missing the point.

First, a little story…

When I was in college, I studied graphic design at Illinois State University.

My undergrad program spent very little time teaching us the software tools that we would go on to use professionally every day. Most of our time was spent learning how to think like designers: to develop concepts, present ideas, and strengthen those ideas through a creative process…not how to use Illustrator or Photoshop.

At the time, I bristled at that a little bit. I had to learn Illustrator almost entirely on my own. Somewhere in the midst of a marathon of online Illustrator tutorials…I remember thinking, “Why am I learning this from YouTube? What am I paying for? I’m in a college degree program for Graphic Design….Shouldn’t they be teaching me the software I’ll have to use professionally?”

Looking back, I’m very glad they approached my education that way.

They focused on developing the foundational, internal skills of being a designer, skills that would translate to any tool.

How to identify the real goal of a project; how to mine for insights that could become the kernels of a concept; how to push an idea further to find ways to “misbehave” and create novel work; how to communicate ideas and organize information.

I think that prepared me very well for the emergence of AI and the question of how to incorporate this new technology into my work, consciously.

Most of my professors had started working before computers were widely used in the design industry. They were familiar with the analog methods of producing and printing graphic design. My professors had seen the computer arrive and completely upend the way designers worked.

But they also had seen how the advent of the computer and design software didn’t change the foundational skills that made a great designer.

They taught us how to think, and scored us on how we thought and how well we used our tools. They expected we’d learn how to use the tools on our own, but that was part of the lesson, too.

It taught us that we’d have to learn new tools, on our own, over and over again for the rest of our career.

Now with AI, the tools have changed again.

AI is a particularly interesting tool because, unlike tools like Illustrator or After Effects, it is a tool that can be used to “automate cognition” as much as it can be used to “automate production”. It makes it incredibly easy to delegate not just the execution of your work, but the creative and critical thinking behind it and still look like you produced a fully finished work.

It’s easier than ever to make lazy work, but it was always possible. You see it in rehashed design trends all over Dribbble. You see it in templated designs on Canva, and clipart in Word, and text effects in Powerpoint.

But lazy work has never made history.

So…is it a crutch or a tool?

For me, a good test of whether you’re using AI (or any software) as a crutch or a tool, is to ask yourself:

“Could I still achieve my goal if this tool was taken away?”

The end result might not look exactly the same.
You might have to use a medium you’ve never used before.
It might take a lot longer.
You might even have to go watch a new Youtube tutorial or two to teach yourself something new.
But could you still solve the problem?

Think about a trained designer who suddenly loses access to software like Illustrator. They could move to a hand-illustrated logo, or turn to their graphic design history textbooks to explore older, pre-digital methods. A constraint like that might even help them produce more creative, unexpected work.

If you’re a software engineer who’s using AI heavily for coding and you suddenly lose access to it, would you still be able to write code? Or at least know the path to refresh your knowledge and get back to creating by hand?

If you consider yourself a craftsperson or skilled worker in any field, but you notice yourself becoming dependent on a particular tool to produce your work, you’ve come to rely on something outside of yourself.

No matter how good a tool is, be careful not to relinquish your autonomy to it.

If you can move freely between tools, or work without AI altogether, and still find ways to be successful, that’s a good indication you’re using AI as a tool rather than a crutch.

If not, it’s worth asking: What skills do I need to develop in myself so that I have autonomy and competency, rather than relying on a tool to think or produce for me?

It’s not about “No AI” or “All-in on AI”, it’s about making sure you don’t relinquish your autonomy to any tool you use.

—

I’m Jessica Tenuta. I’m a designer-founder who built my first company, Packback, an AI EdTech platform used by over 3M students with a mission of awakening lifelong curiosity. My work at Packback earned me a spot on the Forbes 30 under 30 list (my braggiest-brag). I now run Color/Math, a multi-disciplinary product design and branding studio.

I’m journaling my thoughts and explorations in AI and creativity, and the intersection of the two. You might kind of hate AI. I kind of hate it, too. But I am also fascinated by it, and amazed by what humans can use it for when they’re “in the driver’s seat”. I’m choosing to explore AI “with curiosity, not contempt” (to borrow a quote from Maria Popova, in her June 2026 interview with Debbie Millman).

Is AI your tool, or your crutch? was originally published in Bootcamp on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.