Accountability Over AI: Christian Hurst's Framework for Creative Integrity

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2025 My main takeaway and my main stance has always been that the we need to frame every discussion around the accountability of individuals who use it and and not and stop personifying the technology because the tool itself, or whatever you want to call it. I know there's even debate about whether it's a tool. But the software does not have any moral responsibility, nor does it have any accountability. It cannot. It is just. It's not a. It's not intelligent. Let's just put it that way.

Step into the world of success with your brand Amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses. I'm your host Anika Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies and secrets that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success. Like many of my guests, Christian Hurst is multifaceted and like many of the conversations that I've having, particularly lately, we are all striving for human connection. We're trying to figure out what that means. May embrace AI, but we also want to make sure that there is a path to continuing to matter as humans. A sense of belonging to and Kristen, this is part of your story and journey. I will just share. I grew up in Kansas as I'm half Asian. My mom came for university and it was the era when you don't teach your children how to speak your native language because maybe you're still learning to assimilate. So I grew up feeling very othered, like I didn't belong. There was nobody else who looked like me. There was a big Thai community at her university when she's getting grad school. But then after that, it was really difficult. And so I spent a lot of time in my early years and even, I think, probably up until recently, many decades later, figuring out, what does it mean to belong? How do I be okay with my own identity? And so I really felt a connection when I was just going through your materials and things that you've gone through. And I'd love for you to share your journey and your story and how you found where you belong.

Sure, absolutely. And I'm super happy to be here. Thank you so much for. For having me. And, you know, I love to talk about the ideas behind our own sense of identity and that, like you mentioned, the journey that it can take us on. And so, yeah, from a very young age, I felt a little bit different from my peers. I grew up in the Mormon Church, and I always felt a little bit like an outsider, just a little bit different than everybody around me. And I feel like as I, you know, especially as I sat in church and I listened to people and they talked about that, just the certainty and just how sure they were. And it was always like, I know this is true, or I know this is going to happen, or I know this is the way things are going to be. And then I would see that, like, inevitably, that it didn't work out exactly the way they planned, you know, and. And that would. It was like people were constantly having the rug pulled out from under them. And so that was just an early observation. I've always been kind of like a skeptic. You know, I've always kind of had that mind that, like, picks things apart. And so as I observed these things, I started to think more about just like, when you. And this is something that's taken me years to really mature in my view of that. You know, looking back, it's when you enter the room or. Or you meet somebody, there's always going to be a certain amount of expectations that they have, or there's going to be a way that they see you or, Or. Or things that they put on you as your identity. And I think the more that we believe those things that people tell us, the harder a time we have to endure the things that come in life. But the stronger that we. The more that we listen to ourselves and the stronger that sense of our own self is from the inside, that's when we have the strength to endure. And so that's sort of how I talk about my upbringing, you know, and how this journey of really getting in touch with myself and who I am on the inside has allowed me now, I think, to be a better person, to see that we are more alike, no matter who you meet, than we are different. Yeah.

We'll get into more of your story and philosophy, but one of the things that we are here to talk about is that you are an author, and the book series that you've started, you have, I think, two books out right now. And possibly we'll tease out some things about what's happening to the title character, Lily Starling, next. But her story is about identity, connection, figuring out where she fits. So you can talk a little bit about how your lived experience led you on this path. Like, did you always have that inkling to write and share stories that would help share your story, but also many other people's journeys, but in a way that was fictionalized?

Yes. And thank you for bringing that up. I'm a lifetime science fiction fan, and stories have always been very meaningful to me at a time when I felt very alone. You know, get lost in fiction and in these worlds in my own imagination, and. And it would allow me to explore sort of these different elements of my own personality and things about myself in these fictional worlds. And so I've always been a creator, I've always been an artist, and I've always been a writer. And just, you know, I love to create things. And so I was drawing my own comic books when I was, you know, 11, that kind of thing. And so I've been wanting to put these books together for a long time. So my background is in brand marketing and design and advertising. And I think that years of putting your work out there for a client, and then even if people love it, it just being ignored the next day or, you know, it has a life cycle. Right. I think learning to do that, where you put your heart into something, and then it's just kind of, poof, there it is. And gone has prepared me for. It was just one day. I was finally like, you know, why don't I just put this out into the world I've been wanting, you know, why am I sitting on these things? If it's my own anxiety or my own preciousness about my work, I can get over that. I've done that a million times, you know, in. In my job. And so. So I think the time was right. It's kind of. I had a little bit of time on my hands, and I wanted to get these messages out into the world, and I wrote them for young people because the ideas I came up with when I was younger, and I hope that they can help people out. But, yeah, Lily is a lot of me in that character and other people that I know. But the audience comes in at the same point that she is when the story starts because she's lost her memories and she's searching for who she is, and she really doesn't know what's going on around her. And so when you start reading your level playing field with her and in the story, you know she doesn't know what's going on, you don't know what's going on. And so you kind of discover these things together, which is kind of fun.

Yeah. And as you mentioned, you also have your day job. Right. Your life as a strategist, spin marketer, and you actually started as a teenage graphic design intern.

Yeah, that's right. And I have to hand it to my parents. I love my parents, and they have always done everything they can to give me the opportunities that they could give me. Even when I grew up, we were pretty poor, to be honest, and we didn't have a lot of means. And I think that's cool because, like, I. It taught me to be creative. It. It taught me to be hardworking and kind of scrappy and flexible and not always get what you want, which is a good thing. And. But my parents got me this. They knew I was into art and computers, and they had a friend who was a graphic designer for the state of Pennsylvania, and Diane Haas, who's an amazing designer, and she's still designing, I think, still for the state. And that got me this internship when I was 16, and I learned graphic design from her, and I ended up going to community college. And that was. I think most of my formal training was in design. I minored in writing in college, but. And so, yeah, so that was where I got my. And. And I love it. I still love design. I. I do a lot of that, too. And. But yes, I started young and I don't know, I. I guess I have limited interests because I. I'm stuck with these things through my whole life.

I would call that driven, not limited. People have listened to the podcast before know. My daughter has known since she was 12 that she wants to get a PhD in neuroscience. But it. As a parent, it makes it a lot easier when your child has. I mean, you're a parent as well, right? When they really are so targeted and focused. Obviously, she does other things, too, but knowing that we. She has a path and we can help provide, like your parents did, tools, resources, ways to get into the community of neuroscientists and think about what that looks like and be able to talk to people who speak her language. Right. It's so important. And the fact that your parents were able to give you that gift and then you've just, I mean you've had so many different roles as creative director, art director, creative services and design director at Marriott large companies. And then now aarp, which I think almost in that age group now because it starts a lot younger than you think or I guess because when people were in their 50s and 60s in generations past, they didn't, they weren't as maybe young as we feel like that is today. But now you're director of brand strategy and creative services, so you have that still. You have a creative outlet in both of the areas that you play in.

That's right. And I'm so privileged to be able to, you know, work at AARP and do be a part of the great work that they do. And I do have to say that my views and opinions here don't represent AARP as an organization, but I really genuinely believe in their mission and I'm so grateful to be able to use my talents for an organization that does good. And that was something that I has been a long term goal of mine for a long time. But working at Marriott and other places like that was super fun and I got just amazing experiences and lots of stories connected to that. But it's really neat to be somewhere that I can say that they're actually making a difference in the world. That's neat.

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Exactly. Yeah. It's about empowering people to be able to choose how they live as they age. And I think so that it's appropriate to start thinking about that at any age, you know, because you don't think about it. We don't think about getting older. Right. Until it comes along. And you know, that's one of the things, just inevitabilities. As long as you're on this planet, you're getting older. But I think it goes along too with like what you were saying about your daughter. And I think it's really, I have learned as I've worked with younger people that younger people need to see that the opportunity is possible in order to be able to get there themselves. And that was something that I kind of took for granted because my parents were very much keyed into the fact that, like, if I was interested in a certain thing, they can sort of put it in front of me and I can follow that and learn about it. And it never occurred to me that certain things were out of reach, even though we didn't come from, you know, I didn't come from money or anything, but it never occurred to me to limit my own dreams. But I have learned that especially in certain communities where maybe the parents haven't seen the inside of a office or a lab or a Creative agency or whatever it is, then they can't really give that to their children as a lived experience either. And so it's so cool when you. Well, I was in community college and I saw like my mentor there who's just amazing, Marjona Talebi. She runs the program there, but she has structured it so that we would. The class would actually go and visit different agencies and businesses that employ graphic designers. And seeing that I think was really important for a lot of my classmates there to. To be able to visualize that, oh, I could sit in that chair and do that someday. And that's not something that everybody gets. So I think it's cool when you're able to hand that to somebody.

Yeah, absolutely. It's interesting because one of the things that you do talk about as well is storytelling as a form of survival. But in storytelling, you know, there's. You also said that Lily is a mix of you and who you identified as when you were young. So I want to get into that a little bit deeper in terms of when we're in stories and we're reading. Do you think it's because they reflect parts of ourselves back to us or do you think that we are trying to escape our real lives and our lived experiences? Or is it a little bit of a mix?

It's a very good question because I have been thrown that a lot where it's like my books are not true escapism, which I would agree with. But I also think that there's very little fiction that is actually pure escapism. Like usually it's written from some perspective or point of view. I was talking about this with my wife the other day, Jackson Pollock's paintings. And Jackson Pollock always famously said that his paintings didn't mean anything and that there was no meaning in this art. But I mean, it says a lot about you when you have a warehouse sized canvas and you come up with different ways of like throwing the paint onto the ca. You know, I mean it, of course it says something. It still says something even when he claims that it doesn't say anything. And so I think that you can lose yourself in a work and it can be escapism in the fact that it can take your mind off of things. But I think also the art of it still could inspire you even in ways that you maybe didn't expect or thinking about consciously.

Yeah, definitely. And when it comes to your own art outside of the workplace.

Right.

The book series, are you planning to do additional books in that series? Do you have other creative Ideas that you want to get out into the world that are just waiting for you to take the time to do so.

Yes, I have too many ideas. And I was telling someone the other day I didn't expect the Lily Starling series to take off the way it has. So it's, you know, and I'm, I'm so tickled and happy that people have connected with it, but that's how I'm kind of in this now. I'm kind of locked in it now because there are five books that I want to do. I want to tell this story to completion. But I do have lots of other ideas too. It's not just this one. I think some people become authors because they have this one, they have this great idea for a book and they write it and then they're kind of bound to that book to try to make it succeed. Fortunately, as sort of like a multimedia artist, I have so many ideas like that if I, if one thing doesn't work out, I can move to the next project pretty easily. And, and that's where like my training as a, as a designer comes in. Because it is kind of prototypical. You know, you make the minimum viable product and you see how it works and see how it, how people engage with it. And if it, if people like it, then you refine it further.

One thing in the world of creative pursuits is of course, artificial intelligence, generative AI. All the conversations around that I do, I use some of it for my podcast, right? For some of the, not for editing, but for some of the creating materials with human oversight. I also teach digital media management, digital social media, a university. Obviously, every conversation we have has to involve, okay, what is AI doing in this area? So I was, I'm interested to hear your perspective as somebody who is, you know, brand strategist, a creator, visually and with a written word. How have you seen that it changed the industry? And what do you think are the takeaways from trying to be somebody who actually is an authentic creator, but also having, you know, this world where there are people solely creating with AI or knowing that a lot of what we see now on the Internet has at least a little AI, whether it's image generation or wordsmithing or.

I think that it is, I mean, it's fascinating time to live in. I think the computing world especially is changing in ways that we cannot foresee in the next, you know, five to 10 years. But a generative AI, specifically, when it comes to the creative world, I think there are enough conversations that we could probably fill you know, a couple days worth of podcasts as far as that goes. But my main takeaway and my main stance has always been that the, we need to frame every discussion around the accountability of individuals who use it and, and not. And stop personifying the technology. Because the tool itself, or whatever you want to call it, I know there's even debate about whether it's a tool, but the software does not have any moral responsibility, nor does it have any accountability. It cannot, it is just, it's not, it's not intelligent, let's just put it that way. And so if someone steals your intellectual property creating an image using one of these tools that, and they're, they make an image that looks like your artwork and they post it, please do not try to like treat it any differently than if they had plagiarized your work without the tool. You know what I mean? It just makes the copy. And it's like when the photocopier came out and people just started photocopying books from the library. You can't do that. Right. And so we have to, we have to put the accountability on the individuals. I cannot steal someone's work and call it my own and expect to have no account, no repercussions. Right. So that's how I always start by just framing it in that way. And so like whether or not we use the tool or, you know, what the proper uses of the tool are, the proper trainings or where you get the tool from, I think we can talk about that till the cows come home or, you know, it's an ongoing debate. It's inevitable that it will insert itself into some part of all of our careers at some point because it's just that's, it's taking over, you know, any computer based interaction, anything online now is going to have some AI, generative AI component to it. But I think we need to stop talking about a generative AI as if it is an entity and talk about the accountability of corporations, of individuals, of, you know, of organizations that use it. I'll tell you, I have in my professional life seen pitches from, or teams that will remain nameless, that are just lousy and they're full of just AI, which is contributing to the lousiness. But it's just it, it allows people to be lazy and to feel like that they should somehow still get the full credit for, you know, using it. I don't know, it can certainly shave some time off in Photoshop when you're trying to trace around flyaway hairs. I'll say that. But apart from that, I don't go into too much detail.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's a fair assessment. I. And it's continues to be such a big debate over copyright issues. Right. And when you mentioned plagiarism, I mean, obviously that's part of it. Have you seen that happen to your own work?

Not to my work, but I do know it's happened and I've seen. I saw an illustrator the other day who was complaining about someone had posted a photo to social media of that was essentially a chat GPT altered version of their work. And they were talking about. It was basically a long post that was railing against ChatGPT. And I was like, but you should be railing against the person that stole your work. That person stole your work and posted it to social media. But you're not complaining about them, their actions at all. You're complaining about AI, you know, and so I think we need to focus our efforts on the fact that we. Anyway, I don't want to repeat myself too much, but you get the point.

Yeah. And just thinking about how we connect and what it looks like to be empathetic towards other people, to, you know, create this humanness when we do have a world where technology is going to continue improving and taking over parts of our lives. Right. So how. I mean, obviously, I'm sure writing is one of those ways for connect. To connect and create empathy with people. What are some of the things that you think we should be considering to make sure that we're connecting truly? Because another thing, we all see what we're. What's being recommended to us by recommendation engines, right. From machine learning, whether it's what TV show or streaming show we're going to watch on whatever platform to what we see on if we're doom scrolling on TikTok or trying to find friends on Facebook or whatever the platform is. Even book recommendations. Right?

Absolutely.

Or from Kindle or wherever. So what is the role that we can play as creatives, as humans who want to still have these lived human experiences and connect with people and maintain some kind of empathy beyond what the algorithm's trying to tell us about and what the narrative is from the algorithm?

Yeah, I think that, you know, technology can be a great help to us when it comes to connection because, like, what we're doing right now, we're having a good, honest, real conversation, you know, from far away. And I think those are legitimate things. I think like social media has its ups and downs, you know, you can, if you view it more as entertainment I think that it's a little healthier than trying to view it as actual human connection. But I think that yeah, on the flip side, it's like there's a safety issue, right? Because a lot of times what we're being told we will enjoy is what the corporation connected to the platform that we're on wants us to consume. And so we just have to keep a clear head when it comes to that. But at the same time, and I did a video series on this recently about Amazon and how we tend to make Amazon the villain all the time. It's kind of this like post apocalyptic thing happening in our world in real time and a lot of authors talk about it and we would rather just sell our books from a cart on the sidewalk kind of thing. But the reality is that I think a lot of good voices and a lot of human voices can still use these platforms that may not in themselves inherently be good, but to get their message out to, to a larger group of people. And so yeah, I think everybody's going to see it differently, everybody's going to connect differently. But I do think that the most important thing is that we have these, these real moments, whether they're virtually or whether they're in person and just talk, you know, put the social media out especially I think, and have a real conversation.

Yeah, these conversations make my day when I get to speak to people and it gives me so much hope for where we're going. Right. Even though we are using technology to have these conversations. And I know that I'll use technology to create some of the materials and then my team will go through and make sure that we've captured what we really want to capture and fine tune things or completely edit things. But actually having this connection, this human to human conversation and knowing that we are across the country from each other. Right. As well, it helps to know there are people who are doing this work and who see the value and connection all over.

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Exactly. And I think it goes back to this idea of that I talk about a lot, which is that we are more alike than we want to admit sometimes. And so, you know, when you see someone on the street, you can choose, you can make a choice to either see their differences and to view that through the lenses that we've been. That have been put upon us. And to view that and to say, you know, well, I hate X, Y and Z about this person. And that can be very real to people. But if we come from an internal place and we are a little bit better in tune with who we are inside, I think it's much easier for us to first see the things that we have in common. And then obviously, yes, it's important to recognize our differences, but I think that that is the first step, is to just see past the differences first, and then we can have a conversation from a more equal level. Yeah.

In your work, whichever part of the creative side spectrum you're on, you have so much experience in branding and creative direction in creative writing. What are some things you've learned about people from the stories you've shared, Whether it is a brand story for one of the major corporations you've worked for or in your own books?

I think the lesson that I'm repeatedly taught, and it's something that my favorite authors, Victor Hugo and Ursula Le Guin, who Actually, I found out later was a big Victor Hugo fan. But so it all comes full circle. But, you know, they talk a lot about the, they warn about the dangers of absolutism in society. And that's something that comes, it's like that always comes around in my mind when I'm learning more about like human connection and how people think. And it's this idea that the more that you say that, you know, going back to what we talked about earlier on, the more dangerous it is. You know, if you say, you know, I know this and I know that and those things turn out not to be true, or if you say, I think this is good, I mean, we see it all the time, right? People say like, you know, what's going to happen in the next election, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or I know what this, you know, I know what X Corp is going to do, or I know what this is going to do and what that's going to do. But you don't know. You want to feel that, you know, because it makes you feel better about it makes you feel more certain about your, your place in reality. But the only thing you can really know is what's in here, what's inside. And so I think we need to have those honest conversations with ourself to say, this is who I am on the inside, this is my identity. And when you have that strong sense of identity, you avoid things like this absolute thinking where it's like. And that's how we divide ourselves into these binary camps, you know, and it's like our side versus their side. And so that's what I learned more and more, is that we should live in the gray spaces. It just makes everybody happier because you're able to connect more and instead of always attacking each other.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean, it just makes me think of when we think about sales funnels, we think about the way we market to consumers just because it's one way, perhaps in the United States, or the constructs of top of the funnel, middle, bottom, this is how people buy. When you travel the world, you find very different realities.

Right.

I was just in Vietnam in October. And the way that they purchase is so different. And the intention and part of the country is more price conscious. And they will do five or 10 steps to find the right price for what they want. And that may include visiting a store physically and then going online here and here and here. So it can sometimes be seem like as an outsider, a bigger time investment. And then other parts of the country might be More brand loyal, which we think we are in the United States. But that really opened my eyes up to that fluidity and how it really touches every single part of our lives. And we can't live in these absolutes, as you mentioned. We need to think about. We are seen maybe as experts in certain parts in our fields. Right. But there's always so much more to learn or the algorithms change.

Absolutely.

So the way that we have to market something is different. Or, oh, there's this new technology that we now have to learn, and we have to figure out does how it fits or does it fit into our workflows and what do we need to help other people understand about it or not. So.

Absolutely. And that's. Yes, I think our brains for a reason. We. We become very centric to our own situation and tribal almost, and it makes sense. But I think that storytelling gives us the opportunity to break out of that in our mind. I mean, at least that's how it's always worked for me. It's like I see new perspectives. I start to see the world in different ways. I said, I may not be able to go travel to all the places that I want in my life, but I can read about them, I can learn about them, and. And it opens up the mind. And then you start to see things from. Yeah. The perspective of other people because. Yeah, exactly. That. Everyone sees things a little bit differently.

So what are some of the things you're taking in to your life, whether it's in the next year, three years, five years, you have a family, you have pets, you have book series, you have your day job. How do you want to show up? Who do you want to be and what are the things that you want to put out into the world?

What do I want to be when I grow up? Yeah. You know, it's interesting because if you asked me 10 years ago, would I be in the world of science fiction, like, as an author, I probably would not have seen that coming. So I try not to get too wound up in what's coming in the future. I'd like to see more and more people find my stories. I think that would be cool to see, you know, Lily Starling on Netflix. I don't know. We'll see.

Yeah. Okay. We. We see it happening. Yeah. Amazing. I think I have a sense for this question, and I don't want you to repeat yourself, but I'm going to ask for what is the one thing you want people to take away from the work that you do and from our conversation?

Sure. I think the one thing that I would like to leave with people is to just keep going. Because a lot of times that's where we trip ourselves up, is we give up too easily. And, you know, we all. It's. It sucks to be bad at things. Right. But that's how you have to start. Everything is to. To be not the best at it. Right. And so just don't give up and keep creating. And if you try to get a book published and it doesn't work out, or if you try to get this job and it doesn't work out or whatever, don't take that as a stopping place. Take it as the next step to where you want to be. And you can always create more. And you always have the capacity, I think, for broadening your imagination even more. So don't stop. Keep going. Yeah.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. Christian. This has been a really centered, grounded conversation. I've really enjoyed it. And I've enjoyed having this very human conversation about different aspects of your life and how you connected those to where you wanted to go, where you wanted to be, and even the gratitude you have for that early life you led. It's really refreshing to see that. And I do think out of adversity comes some of the most beautiful things that we can learn and that we can do in the world.

Thank you so much. It's been wonderful. Yeah.

And of course, we're going to lead people to your publishing website where we can find your books. And what I love is that you have major retailers, local bookshops, and Amazon, all three really great options for people so they can choose who they want to support and how they want to purchase.

So that's right. Yep. And I'm easy to find online. So, you know, if you want to follow me on Instagram or TikTok at Seahurst Publishing or just go to Lilysdarlingbook.com and you'll find it. Great.

Well, we will have some of those links in the show, notes for everybody to click through really easily. So if you're driving, don't worry, we have a link for you. And when your series becomes a show, let's have you back on so that we can talk about the next iteration of your life. And is that. Are you now just like in that I see it happening. So when it happens, is that the moment you take the next step in your journey to fully become just a published author, getting other series out and seeing them on the big screen?

I don't know. You know, I want to get these five books done and then I I have five more already in mind for the Lily Starling world. And like I said, I have tons of other ideas so it just, it depends on where it goes. So I'm happy to follow it through however far it goes.

Amazing. Thank you to everybody who's watching this episode or listening to it. These are my favorite kind of conversations where yes, we're talking about some of the things in tech, right, and some of the things that we do in the real world. But really getting into your story, your journey, and I know that everybody who's listening can relate to some aspect of it. So just remember Christian's advice, keep going. We don't start out really well at everything we do. You know. Really you have to have persevere. You have to keep trying and testing and iterating and training to get there. But also remember to live in your humanness and remember to help other people with their creative sparks and their journeys as well. Thanks for listening or watching to this episode of youf Brand Amplified. Don't forget to leave us a rating or review on your favorite podcast listening platform. And if you want to learn more, check us out@yourbrandamplified.com. Not every sale happens at the register. Before AT&T business Wireless checking out customers on our mobile POS systems took too long.

Long.

Basically a staring contest where everyone loses. It's crazy what people will say during an awkward silence. Now transactions are done before the silence takes hold. That means I can focus on the task at hand and make an extra sail or two. Sometimes I do miss the bonding time.

Sometimes AT&T business Wireless Connecting changes everything. If you like the show, please take a moment to rate, review and subscribe.

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Thank you for listening. Hello everyone. This is the host of the podcast no Chitchat Trivia inviting you to join me every Monday, Wednesday and Friday for some no nonsense trivia fun. Each episode jumps quickly into 10 trivia questions on a unique topic. And with a background catalog approaching 500 episodes, there's a ton of fun to be had. Perfect for road trips or family time. Search no Chit Chat trivia on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your pods.