When efficiency becomes the headline
Almost two years ago, I wrote about the growing obsession with efficiency in AI - how the chase for speed and perfect output quietly reshapes what we consider as good. Few days ago, I saw Rohlik’s announcement about a new Christmas campaign, and it came back instantly.
1 person, 80 hours of work, 1000+ prompts, 3000 generated visuals and a total cost under 400 €. It revealed something about how we’re beginning to evaluate creative work.
When numbers replace ideas
What struck me wasn’t the campaign itself, but the way it was presented. Not through the idea, not through its message, not through the craft - but through production metrics. As if the value of the work lies in how fast it was made and how little it cost.
Let’s put aside the fact that the implied hourly rate doesn’t make much sense. That’s secondary. It turns the spotlight away from the work and onto how little it cost to make as if the price tag were the message.
A 1000+ prompts don’t signal vision. 3000 generated visuals don’t signal originality. And a 400 € campaign doesn’t signal innovation - it signals that we’ve started celebrating something else entirely.
It reminded me of a quote from a cool baseball-themed movie Moneyball that feels strangely relevant: “You’re measuring the wrong thing.” Because that’s exactly what happens when numbers and not ideas, become the story.
Efficiency has definitely its place. But when it becomes the main goal, it quietly lowers ambition and flattens standards. The more loudly people highlight how little they invested, the more their work begins to reflect that. Speed measures time, not quality and cost measures expense, not depth.
The hidden cost of chasing efficiency
If efficiency becomes the main story, quality quietly becomes optional. Not because people stop caring, but because they’re no longer encouraged to.
It may sound obvious, but creative work should never be defined by how little it costs. It has to be defined by what it provokes, what it changes, how it makes others feel. And that can be hardly measured in prompts, credits or production hours. If we forget what’s worth taking time for, AI won’t make us faster - it will just make us forget.
To be completely fair, I have no doubt Rohlik meant well. I imagine they wanted to experiment, to try something new, maybe even make something beautiful with the cool tools they had. But the fact that the primary story became how little it cost and how quickly it was made says something underneath - and a bit more unsettling.
It suggests that we could be really shifting from celebrating the work to celebrating the efficiency of producing it. That's going to be a strong side effect of AI. Once we start rewarding the wrong things - we shouldn’t be surprised when the right things slowly fade.