Rob Biddulph says human creativity is worth defending against AI

“There's a sort of soullessness to them, and I find it sad that we appear to be increasingly happy to settle for that.” I'm talking to Rob Biddulph, the children’s book illustrator and author who rose to prominence during the Covid pandemic when his #DrawWithRob YouTube channel racked up millions of views from children and parents needing an outlet for their creativity, about a very different kind of pandemic: the proliferation of AI-generated art.

Biddulph was named Illustrator of the Year 2025 at the British Book Awards, but today he’s talking about the troubling increase he's seeing in shops and cafes and other venues displaying posters that are clearly designed by AI.

“I think they're really depressing, to be honest," he tells me.

"One of the things I love about illustration is that it's an expression of somebody's individual personality.

Human beings can't help but put a bit of their own personality into a drawing or a design.

"Often, you can look at a piece of artwork and recognize the person who made it — see their quirks, their imperfections, their sense of humor and the decisions they've made along the way.

To me, that's what makes it interesting.

“And I also think there's something particularly ironic about using AI to advertise a local event.

Surely the whole point of a local event is that it's about people and community?” AI is doing more than cluttering the high street Personally I’d rather see a wonky poster than another technically polished but utterly generic piece of AI artwork.

Rob Biddulph Biddulph has a point.

Personally, I’d rather see a wonky poster created by a real person than another technically polished but utterly generic piece of AI artwork.

But AI is doing much more than cluttering up the high street with slop art.

It’s taking paid work away from human designers and illustrators — the irony being that those AIs have all been trained on the work of human artists, with no compensation paid to those artists.

“The thing to always remember is that these AI systems haven't appeared out of thin air,” explains Biddulph.