The value of process is the model’s answer to the deepest question AI raises for aliveness: if a machine can generate anything you want to make, instantly and better, then why struggle? The answer is that the question assumes the point was ever the output.
Sometimes the value of an activity lies in what becomes alive through the participant while doing it, not merely in the quality of the resulting artifact.
The song matters — but so does singing; the painting matters — but so does painting; the match matters — but so does playing. We already accept this in chess, where people still play though machines are incomparably better, and the point of human chess did not vanish when it was surpassed. Generalized, it becomes the stronger claim that human participation counts even when it is not output-maximizing — which is how a civilization stays alive alongside systems that outproduce it, not by denying the outproduction but by locating human worth where the comparison never reached. When output becomes abundant and cheap, process is what remains scarce and human.