As AI continues to impose itself on the world economy, the question on everyone’s mind is “Where does this lead us, ultimately?”
For non-creatives, AI tools for building neat-looking websites, presentations and interactive experiences represent an exciting advancement in technology. For as long as I’ve been creating digital design, non-creative stakeholders have seemed to reluctantly endure the design process, under-appreciating the thought and attention that goes into routine design considerations and decisions, never really understanding why the images in their minds could not be exactly, and efficiently, translated directly onto the page or product. Now they can be.
With baked-in templates and automated generators, they are unburdened by a cumbersome design process, have reduced or eliminated their design teams and are free to happily crank out professional-looking designs and products with their logos and brand colors applied.
On the other hand, and alongside these AI advancements in design, creative but non-technical stakeholders have always lamented the technical aspects of digital creation. “No coding knowledge required” has been a hallmark sales point of design and presentation software products for decades.
These folks are delighted to have the ability, thanks again to automated AI tools, to produce their visions in a functional manner without relying on those intimidating and condescending developers to turn their pretty pictures into working products.
It’s basically game-over for professional designers and developers. People, like myself, who built our careers on the ability to design for the non-designer and build for the non-technical, have become obsolete.
But the story doesn’t end there. The products and processes will continue to be optimized in our absence. What becomes of the two stakeholder types I referenced? Their individual purpose, to answer the age-old question of “form or function?” still seems at odds with one another.
Suppose the non-designer and the non-technical are using AI to approach the same problem, to build a product to make some industry task more efficient. The non-designer will win out because he is focused on efficiency primarily and presentation secondarily. Conversely, if the problem is to communicate a message to an audience in the most effective way, that should go to the non-technical, based on the inverse prioritization.
The point is ultimate optimization accounts for this too, and the stakeholders themselves become irrelevant because the AI can decide for itself which approach is most appropriate for which task, up and up the chain, until all tasks are automatically determined based on need, and executed based on efficiency and effectiveness, with no individual human input or involvement required whatsoever.
This progress, taken to its inevitable end, will eliminate every single human job. There is no need for humans to analyze, speculate, debate, treat, perform or exist in this environment except for their own, suboptimal human sake.
Should we resist this straightforward progression toward singularity? Is it even possible to resist?