Last year, I started playing around with a tool called Suno, an AI service that allows people to make music based on simple prompts. During the fall semester, I was talking to a friend who said “Who needs Paris?” in a playful and sarcastic way when I shared plans for my upcoming trip to the City of Lights, knowing that she couldn’t be there. I thought it was funny and would be great to use as lyrics. After titling the song “Who Needs Paris” and telling AI where this thought came from, Suno “composed” a surprisingly catchy song within minutes. (You can listen to it here.) Though I had so much fun making it, my friend was not amused when I shared it with her within a few hours of our conversation. She felt offended at how easily the AI service created music—after all, she has been a professional musician for decades.

We eventually laughed it off, but I also wondered: Is it still fun to create, when you don’t have to try very hard?

This is a question I’ve been asking a lot lately.

When Making Things Was Half the Fun

Traditionally, the joy of creativity has been bound up with effort: Writers have rituals, painters have brushes and smudges. There’s something satisfying about wrestling with a blank page or layering oil paint over a canvas—and there’s something deeply human in the process itself. Though painful at times, I often feel a great sense of joy when I “discover” a sentence or phrase that evokes emotion or insight (like “Who needs Paris?”).

But GenAI skips the struggle. It’s prompt in, content out, like magic. For some, that feels like cheating; for others, it feels like play.

A Mixed Bag of Emotions

Many artists and creators felt alarmed when GenAI tools like ChatGPT, DALL·E, and Suno began to emerge. Screenwriters feared for their jobs—remember the WGA strike?—and some visual artists boycotted platforms that trained on their images. These responses aren’t irrational: There are real ethical and economic implications in the adoption of AI. But beneath the fear, there’s also a loss of fun. The craft that once brought joy now risks feeling redundant or mechanized.

Still, that’s not the full story.

Recent research shows that how we use AI can shape not just our output, but our enjoyment of the creative process. They’re not mourning a lost skill; they’re discovering something new. In fact, a recent paper showed that individuals who collaborated with AI as co-creators—rather than simply editing AI-generated work—reported significantly higher levels of creative self-efficacy. In other words, when people felt they were actively making something, alongside AI, rather than just tweaking what the machine gave them, they felt more confident and engaged. For novices, this kind of interaction doesn’t just make creativity more accessible. It makes it more fun.

The same tool that frustrates professionals is delighting beginners.

The Psychology of Fun: Challenge, Mastery, Surprise

From a psychological perspective, fun often emerges in the space between competence and challenge—what Csikszentmihalyi famously described as flow. Too easy, and we’re bored. Too hard, and we’re anxious.

AI tools shift this balance. They make hard things easier, which can either increase or decrease fun, depending on where you’re starting from.

For beginners, AI offers surprise and empowerment: “I can do this!”
For experts, it might remove the very friction that made the process meaningful and fun.

In my own research on fun—yes, I study fun for a living—fun is about the sense of liberation, exploration, and being engaged with a pleasurable activity. Generative AI sometimes enhances that. At other times, it can flatten it, perhaps especially for those who closely identify themselves as creators.

Déjà Vu from the 90s

Of course, we’ve seen this reaction before. When the internet emerged in the 1990s, people panicked. A 1995 Newsweek article infamously dismissed it: “No online database will replace your daily newspaper, no computer network will change your life.” Spoiler: It did.

Similarly, GenAI is likely not going away. As with the internet, we will adapt—not by rejecting it, but by rethinking what counts as meaningful and enjoyable.

We’ll find new kinds of fun.

Maybe we’ll play more with ideas than with materials. Maybe the joy will come not from crafting every note or brushstroke, but from remixing and curating. Maybe we’ll learn to collaborate—with machines.

So…Is It Still Fun?

Here’s my very academic-like answer: Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no.

If you loved the slow process of writing or drawing by hand, GenAI might feel like it’s stealing the soul of your art. But if you were always too scared or unskilled to begin, these tools might be giving you access to joy you never thought possible.

And that, to me, is still a kind of magic worth celebrating.

And yes, I thoroughly had fun thinking about this topic and writing about it today.