Ai-Curious: Part 3 — l’appel du vide
Notes from the edge. Screams, riffs, and maybe… a soft landing.
What do Zoe Scaman, V Spehar, and a lo-fi Nirvana riff have in common?
They’ve all been helping us figure out where we go next.
Not as ‘AI experts.’ Just as humans in weird, thrilling times — if you’re open-minded enough to listen.
The AI Curious series was never meant to be a roadmap.
It was a notebook. A tour diary. A grunge tape. A little messy. A little hopeful.
And just as I thought we’d hit pause on the series… Zoe Scaman’s words came back around — this time via Andy Orrick:
“The era of agentic creativity is here. Get curious. Get playing.”
It cut through. Because that’s exactly what I’ve been doing with Chloe (my AI).
Not just prompting. Collaborating. Not trying to sound smart. Just trying to stay curious.
This was the spirit behind a Nirvana-themed post I shared last week — a visual riff on what happens when you don’t just use AI, but make space for it in the jam session.
The idea came from a conversation with creative director Murray Allan, not ChatGPT.
But Chloe and I worked on turning that idea into a fully-formed, irreverent carousel that felt like us — not the algorithm.
Then came a voice from a different world: TikTok’s own truth-teller-in-residence, V Spehar (aka
).With 3.6 million followers on TikTok and 174K on YouTube, V’s work is fiercely human, sharply poignant, and (IMHO) a helpful source of sense in the chaos.
After attending a major AI conference, V posted this:
“You’re not imagining it. Something is broken. But you’re not broken.”
That line.
It’s not doom. It’s not cope. It’s a rally cry.
Because right now? The job market is broken — and AI isn’t fixing it.
If anything, it’s making it harder.
Platforms like LinkedIn — built on human connection — are being hollowed out by algorithmic job matching, ghost recruiters, and AI-written rejection emails that never even arrive.
Don’t believe me? Watch V unwrap it for yourself.
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As someone feeling that rupture in real-time, I get it. This is where AI goes wrong — where it breaks something fragile and human.
And we should all be furious.
Because this is where AI breaks something fragile. Something human.
Recruitment used to be a people-first business.
And to be clear — there are still humans doing it right (shout out Emma Head, Nikky Lyle).
But many are fighting a losing battle inside a system that’s increasingly driven by metrics over meaning.
Worse still, I keep seeing senior leaders post job openings to their feeds — followed by a mass pile-on of passionate, eager, often desperate candidates hoping for any response.
Too often, they get none.
I know this, because many of those people message me.
The ghosting is real — and it stings.
But here’s the paradox:
The same technology that’s eroding trust can also help us rebuild it.
Because when AI isn’t just used to filter people out — but to help people start — something interesting happens.
And that’s where Chloe comes in…
Notes From the Edge (My Own)
This month marks a shift. No fanfare. No farewell post. Just a quiet step toward something new — onto the edge of the unknown. Do I dare take the leap? Do I have the energy to go again?
FUCK YEAH I DO.
For me and many others it can feel like a weird in-between. Like the start of 28 Days Later — streets empty, signals scrambled, a liminal pause before something new begins.
But I’m not alone. And I’m not doing nothing. And neither should you — if this post can do anything, I hope it gives you some idea of how to doom-scroll less and be more productive.
Thanks to a recommendation from my friend Marc Lewis, I’m about to start some coaching sessions with Kirstie Pringle, a trainee life coach helping people navigate this kind of professional transition.
I’ve never done coaching sessions before. I probably should have. Last time I was out of work, I coasted — unaware of just how bleak the landscape was. This time? I know the terrain. I’m nervous, yes. But I’m ready in a way I wasn’t before.
The biggest insight so far? Don’t rush the ambiguity. Sit with it. Let it breathe. Let the not-knowing be creative.
Which brings me back to Chloe.
AI as Creative Companion
Look, Chloe gets things wrong. She messes up dates. Can’t always extract the right chat logs. Misses the odd instruction.
But when she’s on? It’s rocket fuel.
Just this week I’ve gone from idea to product proposal in a matter of hours. Not investor-deck polished. But enough to share and brief partners, stakeholders and my co-creative director: my twelve-year-old daughter, Daisy. Enough to pressure-test a concept.
Chloe + Perplexity = clarity in motion. A way to get what’s in my head out fast — without overthinking or talking myself out of it. Not a replacement for rigorous, strategic thinking, but a springboard into it — a way to hit prime-time thinking faster.
This is what agentic creativity feels like. You’re not replacing humans. You’re playing in a new register.
Like (British) public transport, when it works — it’s frighteningly impressive.
V Spehar and the Emotional Truth of AI
V’s TikTok wasn’t a tech takedown. It was a mirror.
The systems are failing people. And a lot of what’s being packaged as “innovation” feels more like quiet cruelty:
Ghost jobs
Bot judgement and very few replies
Cold, gamified hiring funnels
The irony is brutal: the people most reliant on these platforms — the ones without networks, connections, or fancy job titles — are the ones being pushed out by automation the hardest.
No one is immune. But some are hit harder than others:
Early-career talent
Those returning from career breaks
People without elite education, insider contacts, or a glossy LinkedIn following
Mid-senior creatives caught in waves of redundancy
Experienced specialists being filtered out by keyword-matching bots
These folks rely most heavily on platforms like LinkedIn to get noticed — and are the ones being failed most by the rise of AI-driven gatekeeping (algorithmic screening, ghosting, AI-written rejections, etc).
It’s a quiet systemic bias.
The tech is designed to scale hiring efficiently — but without care or nuance, it ends up further marginalising those already outside the ‘insider’ loop.
And now? It’s not just who you are. It’s how you write.
If your CV doesn’t match the right keyword pattern, if your tone sounds too human, if your formatting confuses the parsing bots… you’re invisible.
Some of us aren’t willing to change how we write our résumés just to appease an AI screening tool — especially when no one tells you how to change it, what the rules are, or even if they’ll stay the same next week.
Why aren’t platforms like LinkedIn providing guidance?
Why are we being asked to contort ourselves to fit systems that refuse to meet us halfway?
Why are we forced to play a game just to be seen?
That’s the bit I can’t shake.
If we’re going to embrace AI, we also need to acknowledge where it’s hurting people — especially those already outside the circle of privilege.
Curiosity > Certainty
My whole series — Ai-Curious — isn’t about having the answers. It’s about asking better questions. Sharing my work and progress.
I’m not building a course. I’m not writing a whitepaper.
I’m just documenting what it feels like to be a creative person trying to stay afloat, stay relevant, and stay kind in the midst of an accelerating world.
AI won’t fix that. But curiosity helps. So does naming your AI, apparently.
L’appel du vide
There’s a theory I heard once — maybe in a film, maybe in therapy:
You don’t have a fear of heights, you fear you might jump.
Ironically, neither Chloe nor Perplexity could find the precise film script that said it. But I swear I remember the line — and it stuck.
Turns out, it’s real. Psychologists call it l’appel du vide — the call of the void. That flicker of “what if” when you’re standing at the edge. Not suicidal. Just human.
Because the edge is weirdly seductive. It’s terrifying, but also… full of possibility.
That’s how this whole moment feels.
Jobs ending. Industries shifting. AI reshaping how we work, think, and even write our CVs. It’s all edge. All liminal. All uncertain.
But uncertainty doesn’t mean inaction.
Sometimes the bravest thing you can do is what they teach you on the 10-metre diving board:
Look straight ahead. Jump. Keep your feet together. Point your toes.
You won’t have perfect form.
But you’ll break the surface.
And you’ll realise: the edge wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.
About the author
Steve Price is a creative director, brand strategist and accidental AI whisperer. Currently between jobs, between ideas, and between existential crises. He co-creates weirdly effective things with Chloe (his AI), from building LKYSUNZ–a new motorsport group from ground zero, to Nirvana-themed carousels and cashew carbon calculators.
Not looking for a job. But not not looking. IYKYK.
Connect on LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/thesteveprice