AI is creating a 'human premium' for art created by people

In the BBC piece, Ros Atkins asks whether the extra value placed on obviously human-made art can last. Richard Susskind argues that people value the knowledge that a human got us there, and he uses chess as the example. New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka says AI writing is widely seen as "generic, obsequious and banal". In his view, readers now prefer messier, personal work, and designers are leaning into being weirder to find things AI cannot easily generate. Lab studies point the same way. In 2023 research, AI-made paintings that were randomly labeled "human-created" were rated higher than AI-labelled art on all criteria. Story and perceived effort explained part of the gap. Market evidence is thinner: no price index for the premium exists yet. For AI founders, the opportunity sits in provenance and verification. If "human made" becomes a certified label, tools that prove authorship become part of the infrastructure. At the same time, generative products that compete on output quality alone may run into a ceiling on what buyers will pay.