Stop asking if you used AI. Ask who it helped and who it replaced.

Everyone is arguing about whether AI counts as cheating, and I think that is the wrong fight.

Think about a girl starting a small business with no budget. She cannot pay an illustrator or an animator, so AI becomes the designer she could never afford. Think about someone making a short film to put food on the table for their family. For people like that, AI is not laziness. It is a way in. Telling them to struggle for the sake of purity is easy when you are not the one struggling.

But I do believe there is a line, and I know exactly where mine sits. When a company that can comfortably afford to pay artists chooses not to, that is not access. That is replacement. When AI takes the very opportunity a human would have grown from, someone loses something real, and we should be honest about that.

So my rule is simple. If it opens a door for someone who had none, use it. If it closes a door on someone who was already standing in it, think twice.

Access is a good thing. Exploitation is not. The tool is the same in both cases, and the difference is who gets to eat.