# Creative Practice Delegation Map

A worksheet for deciding, stage by stage, what to accelerate with AI and what to keep
deliberately human. Companion to
[Keep your taste: AI in a creative practice](/articles/keep-your-taste-ai-creative-practice).

## Map your actual process

Use one recent, real piece of work — not a generic template.

| Stage | What I currently do | What AI currently does (if anything) | Builds my skill? (Y/N) | Carries my voice? (Y/N) | Process is the product? (Y/N) | Decision: accelerate / protect |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Idea generation | | | | | | |
| Reference/research | | | | | | |
| Drafting/sketching | | | | | | |
| Technical execution | | | | | | |
| Critique/editing | | | | | | |
| Finishing/polish | | | | | | |
| Distribution | | | | | | |

**Rule of thumb:** any stage with at least one "Y" is worth protecting even if AI could do it
faster. A stage with all "N" is a reasonable candidate to accelerate.

## Before/after critique prompt

```text
Compare these two pieces of my own work: [describe or paste both].
One used AI assistance at [stage]; one did not.

Looking only at craft quality and distinctiveness — not effort or
speed — which one is more clearly and specifically "mine"? Which one
would a person who knows my work recognize faster as something I
made? Be specific about what creates or removes that recognizability.

Do not tell me which process was better overall. I am asking about
one narrow comparison.
```

## Copyright and provenance record

- [ ] For pieces where ownership might matter later (licensing, sale, dispute), I kept a record of
      my own creative contribution: drafts, layers, revision history, or notes on what I changed.
- [ ] I know that, under current US Copyright Office guidance, purely AI-generated output is
      generally not copyrightable on its own — only my own creative modifications are.
- [ ] If I work under a different jurisdiction, I have checked whether its rule differs before
      assuming the US position applies.

## Consent and imitation checklist

- [ ] I have not asked a tool to imitate a specific, identifiable living artist's style for
      commercial use without considering a license, permission, or open attribution instead.
- [ ] I treat any claim about a model's exact training data as unverified unless the provider has
      published a specific, checkable disclosure.

## Disclosure checklist

- [ ] I have disclosed AI involvement wherever its absence would materially mislead my audience
      about what they are looking at or who made it.
- [ ] For deepfakes or AI-generated text on matters of public interest, I am aware of the EU AI
      Act's Article 50 disclosure requirements (applicable from 2 August 2026) if they apply to
      my work or audience.

## Periodic unaided check

| Date | What I made without any AI assistance | Did it feel harder/weaker than it used to? | What that tells me |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| | | | |
| | | | |

Run this every few months. A noticeably harder or weaker unaided attempt is a signal to move a
stage from "accelerate" back to "protect" — not proof that AI use in general is a problem.