Live Today: Dave Krugman on After Hours

Plus: Amazon Design and LTX join us for LA

October 06, 2026

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Most of the conversation about AI and creative work still asks what the tools can do. For artists, a more useful question is which parts of the work they want to keep doing themselves. For some, that's the making. A photographer who loves the hours behind the camera has little reason to automate them, since those hours are why they picked up a camera in the first place. Once that boundary is clear, a lot of the surrounding work starts to look different. The archive, the website, the tools and the general upkeep of a creative career can be handed off far more freely than the art. In our experience, the artists using AI most thoughtfully are usually the ones who have worked out where that boundary sits for them.

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Archives are a good example. Most creators have years of work sitting in folders they rarely open, and AI makes it practical to search, sort, and revisit that material in ways that weren't realistic before. It gets less attention than it should, partly because the public conversation still treats AI mainly as a way to generate new work. Building is another.

Websites, small tools and back-end infrastructure that used to require hiring a developer are increasingly within reach of one person, which expands what a single creative practice can include. It also makes it more realistic for creators to run their own corner of the internet instead of depending entirely on platforms they don't control. There is a cost to watch for.

When everyone works with the same handful of models, a lot of work starts to look and sound alike, and getting a model to produce something genuinely specific to you takes effort and taste. That effort has become part of the craft, alongside whatever the artist has chosen to keep for themselves.

After Hours Live Today

Later today on After Hours, our live show, we're talking with photographer Dave Krugman. We'll ask him where he draws that line in his own work, how he thinks about his archive, and what he believes creators should own rather than leave to platforms. Register for the full series here.

LA Summit

Amazon Design Joins LA

Amazon Design joins Artist and the Machine as a partner for our Los Angeles Summit this December. With more than 5,000 designers, researchers, and creatives around the world, their team works on a question that only carries more gravity in the age of AI – how do you build technology for millions of people and still make it feel considered, intuitive, and human? We'll be digging into that question together in LA.

LTX Returns

LTX's latest model, LTX-2.5, an open-weight world model, has been built to enable control, giving filmmakers and creative teams the flexibility to run LTX on their own hardware, fine tune for specific project use, and have total control of their IP. As increasingly capable creative models enter production, questions around access, control and who gets to build on them are becoming part of the creative conversation itself. We’ll continue this conversation in-person with LTX in December, who returns as a partner for our upcoming Summit in LA.

Pulse

  • The Continuity Department: CapCut’s new Director Mode on Video Studio takes a more hands-on approach to generative video, giving creators control at the scene level rather than relying on a single prompt-to-video output. Creators can build and organize a story on a visual canvas, refine individual shots, add or replace scenes, and keep characters, environments, props and other assets connected as the narrative evolves. It’s a shift toward treating AI video less like a one-click generator and more like an iterative filmmaking workflow.

  • Specialized Hardware is here (For Kids): Sam Terris opened preorders for Freckle, a $199 phone for kids aged 7 to 13. It has no browser, app store or social media. Kids can call and text contacts their parents approve, and the phone adds a camera, outdoor quests and a walkie-talkie mode. Alexis Ohanian's Seven Seven Six is backing it, and plenty of people have thoughts.

  • Hasta La Vista, F02: Figure needed to retire its F02 fleet without exposing proprietary hardware, and Arnold Schwarzenegger suggested melting them. The company trained the robots to jump, on their own, into a 75-ton arc furnace in Finland. It's an absurd stunt, and also a real demonstration of sim-to-real training.

If you’re creating something aligned with Artist and the Machine or you’d like to recommend work shaping this space, we’d love to see it for the chance to be featured. Reach out to us at [email protected].

Til next time,

Artist and the Machine.

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