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Do i use AI? What's my process?

Tom van der Linden · Like Stories of Old · ·43 min read
Commentary by Hex Index staff

In an era where creators race to automate content with AI, Tom van der Linden's rejection of generative tools as creatively bankrupt isn't just contrarian—it's a masterclass in why human nuance still matters. His confession that AI-written scripts for film essays were "ridiculous and clearly useless" cuts through the hype with rare clarity. For anyone drowning in algorithmically generated content, this Q&A is a lifeline back to authentic creation.

The Fair Use Pivot

Tom van der Linden frames his switch from faceless to on-camera videos as a necessary escape from copyright constraints. "While it was great to use and remix existing footage from movies, it was kind of limiting the scope of what I wanted to talk about," he writes. When philosophical tangents emerged, forcing irrelevant movie clips onto them risked stretching "the limits of fair use," or rewriting segments to stay narrowly film-focused. This echoes the 2015 Lenz v. Universal ruling where courts affirmed copyright holders must consider fair use before issuing takedowns—a reality creators navigate daily. By putting his face on camera, he not only sidestepped legal tightropes but made his work "more personal and therefore also more authentic and unique and harder to just steal away."

Do i use AI? What's my process?

Critics might note that faceless commentary channels actually push fair use boundaries more creatively—but van der Linden’s move reflects a hard truth: in the post-2012 Viacom v. YouTube landscape, individual creators bear the full burden of compliance.

"When it feels like there's an actual person behind it... it becomes more personal and therefore also more authentic and unique."

The Unhurried Creative Process

The core of his argument is refreshingly analog: creativity can’t be rushed. Some video ideas gestate for "like 2 years" until timing and inspiration click—like his "why movies don't feel real anymore" piece requiring academic concepts like "haptic visuality." He describes writing as "puzzling bits and pieces" together, often reversing paragraph order mid-process. This lands because it validates the messy reality of creation in a world demanding instant output. Yet he overlooks how this approach becomes harder as audience expectations scale—a tension he’ll likely face with a million subscribers.

AI: The Tool That Isn’t

On generative AI, Tom van der Linden is refreshingly blunt: "No, I don’t think it will ever replace truly creative work." He tested tools like ChatGPT to mimic his video style and found outputs "ridiculous and clearly useless without me having to rewrite the whole thing." His sole concession is using AI as "a slightly smarter Google search engine" to uncover academic references (like the haptic visuality concept) or film examples he’d forgotten. This distinction—between research aid and creative replacement—is crucial. Critics might note that dismissing AI’s potential entirely risks missing how tools could evolve to assist human creativity, but his lived experience cuts through the hype: if AI can’t grasp the nuance of film essays, what hope does it have for deeper work?

Preserving the Joy of Film

Most reassuringly, Tom van der Linden insists analyzing films hasn’t ruined his enjoyment: "I can still slip pretty much into a state of... trying to enjoy the movie for what it is." He watches films "just for the fun of it," with analytical insights emerging subconsciously later. This matters because it rejects the burnout narrative—proving deep engagement and pure enjoyment can coexist. Yet he sidesteps how algorithmic pressures might change this; as YouTube’s recommendation system favors certain content types, even disciplined creators may start viewing films through a "will this work for a video?" lens.

Bottom Line

Tom van der Linden’s greatest strength is his lived defense of creative friction—the messy, time-intensive process that AI promises (and fails) to replace. His biggest vulnerability is underestimating how rapidly generative tools might evolve beyond current limitations. Watch for whether his "smarter Google" use case becomes a slippery slope as AI improves.

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Do i use AI? What's my process?

by Tom van der Linden · Like Stories of Old · Watch video

That's it. Not sure if you can read the text, but it says, "Presented to Like Stories of Old for passing 1 million subscribers." Awesome. Again, big thanks to everyone who has been watching my videos over the years, who subscribed to the channel. I literally would not have gotten that without you.

In return, I promised to do a big Q&A video, and here we are. There were a good amount of questions to get into, some that will have like longer answers, some that I can answer very briefly. I'll try to make it varied a bit to make this fun to watch. I bundled some questions together that were kind of similar.

And yeah, the first ones are more about the YouTube process and what my process is like in general. First question, you were already successful with the faceless format. What was the specific reason for the switch to on camera? Which was also similar to a question that asked, since transitioning from faceless to on camera, did you find that your production workflow became heavier or slower?

Do you feel the audience connection justifies the extra friction of setting up lights and filming yourself? How do you cope with that change? So yeah, there's a couple of different reasons why I wanted to be more on camera and just in general use more of my own footage instead of just using film footage because I noticed pretty early on after I started doing this that, while it was great to use and remix existing footage from movies and whatnot, there were also a lot of places where it was kind of limiting the scope of what I wanted to talk about. So let's say if I was talking about a movie and then I wanted to kind of diverge into more of a philosophical rant on something then it was difficult to find footage to go with that with that segment and so I either had to kind of stretch the limits of fair use to kind of just slap footage on there from movies even though it wasn't quite relevant or I had to kind of rewrite that section.

in order to be it have it be more about the movie specifically. So I realized that if I wanted to ever expand the scope of what I wanted to talk about like or even ...