While the creative industry races to hand everything over to AI, Matt has quietly built the one thing a machine can't replicate: art so human, so specific to who you are, that clients say "I've never seen myself like this." He calls it brand tattooing — and in this episode, he explains exactly how it works.

Matt has survived the dot-com crash, and the pandemic as an independent creative — and he's convinced the AI era is "only inevitable if you allow it to be."

This is a conversation about creative survival, refusing to follow the expected path, and why the messy, imperfect spark inside a human being will always beat a prompt.

In this episode, host Heather Crank sits down with Matt to explore:

• Why he makes clients answer two interviews — and why the second one starts with "tell me a story that's going to make me cry"
• The childhood escape route that turned a latchkey kid into a working artist by age 13
• His take on the "AI slop" backlash and the coming "rubber band effect"
• The Gen X creative community he's building to weather what's next

Matt is famously hard to find. For the next hour, he's right here.

🎧 The Developing Life Podcast — conversations on building a creative life that survives trends, technology, and the pressure to conform.

#MattWood #CreativeCareer #AIvsHumanCreativity #Illustration #BrandTattooing #GenXCreatives #CreativeEntrepreneur #TheDevelopingLife

Suggest topics, guests, show your love or tell us how we can improve!

Support the show

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEVELOPING TEAM AND CONTINUE THE CREATIVE CONVERSATION

• LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/groups/14310677/
• WEBSITE: thedevelopinglife.com/

FOLLOW TEAM MEMBERS

• Heather Crank | crahmanti.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/heather-crank-crahmanti/
• Tru Adams | truatart.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/tru-adams/
• Davron Bowman | thedevelopinglife.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/davron-bowman/

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#Design #Creativity #Technology #AIinDesign #HumanConnection #CreativeBusiness #HumanStories #Podcast

In this episode of The Developing Life Podcast- Host Heather Crank and special guest Tess Posner sit honestly with the questions almost no one in this conversation is willing to hold at once:

• What does it actually mean to build human-centered AI right now

• Why the "doomer vs. accelerationist" frame is failing us — and what the messy middle requires

• The artist backlash, the Silicon Valley euphoria, and the cognitive dissonance most of us are quietly carrying

• Why Tess is hesitant to use AI in her own songwriting, even as she advises on its future

• Music as alchemy — how songwriting metabolizes the chaos of this moment into something usable

If you've ever felt the pull to be more than one thing — or worried that you'll lose something essential as AI seeps into every part of life — this conversation is a map drawn by someone who's been walking it for years.

Follow Tess: https://resonancesalon.com/ • Substack: Resonance by Tess Posner • Music on Spotify under Tess Posner

Suggest topics, guests, show your love or tell us how we can improve!

Support the show

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEVELOPING TEAM AND CONTINUE THE CREATIVE CONVERSATION

• LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/groups/14310677/
• WEBSITE: thedevelopinglife.com/

FOLLOW TEAM MEMBERS

• Heather Crank | crahmanti.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/heather-crank-crahmanti/
• Tru Adams | truatart.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/tru-adams/
• Davron Bowman | thedevelopinglife.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/davron-bowman/

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#Design #Creativity #Technology #AIinDesign #HumanConnection #CreativeBusiness #HumanStories #Podcast

What if AI isn’t just something we use…
but something we’re raising?

In this deeply human conversation, AI pioneer De Kai, one of the minds behind modern machine translation- shares a perspective that reframes everything:

👉 AI isn’t a tool.
👉 It’s a reflection.
👉 And whether we realize it or not… we are its training data.

From a childhood shaped by music, physics, and rebellion, to a career at the forefront of artificial intelligence, De Kai takes us into a moment humanity has never faced before:

A world where the systems shaping our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors are watching us, learning from us, every second.

And here’s the part that hits hardest:

If AI is learning how to behave…
then what exactly are we teaching it?

This episode isn’t about fear.
It’s about responsibility.

It’s about how everyday moments. How we speak, what we ignore, what we react to, are quietly shaping the future of intelligence itself.

You’ll walk away questioning:

• Are we creating connection… or division?
• Are we thinking… or just reacting?
• And if AI reflects humanity... what version of humanity are we becoming?

This isn’t just a conversation about technology.
It’s a conversation about who we are—and who we’re becoming.

Because the future of AI…
might actually depend on how human we choose to be.

Suggest topics, guests, show your love or tell us how we can improve!

Support the show

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE DEVELOPING TEAM AND CONTINUE THE CREATIVE CONVERSATION

• LINKEDIN: www.linkedin.com/groups/14310677/
• WEBSITE: thedevelopinglife.com/

FOLLOW TEAM MEMBERS

• Heather Crank | crahmanti.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/heather-crank-crahmanti/
• Tru Adams | truatart.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/tru-adams/
• Davron Bowman | thedevelopinglife.com/ | www.linkedin.com/in/davron-bowman/

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#Design #Creativity #Technology #AIinDesign #HumanConnection #CreativeBusiness #HumanStories #Podcast