No, AI Will Not Replace You

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We see many debates about designers being replaced by AI. About designers having to relearn their craft entirely to work with AI. And of course if you don’t learn how to use AI, other people who do use it well, will replace you.

But personally, I don't think either of it is true. And here are a few reasons why.

AI Is Unreliable Software #

First of all, don’t get me wrong: I’m not against the spirit of AI. If it can reduce waste and minimize unnecessary time on screen for humans (while being sustainable), I'm all for it.

However, at the point in time, most AI tools hallucinate approximately 10–20% of the time. Now sure people make mistakes, too. But we shouldn't forget that AI tools are software. And people expect software to be reliable and predictable.

But AI isn't. Now, there is still value in AI, of course. And perhaps it's not a problem if you need a summary of a report. But it's a problem if you give financial advice in a banking application. It needs humans to verify the quality in these scenarios.

Unsurprisingly, so many AI products out there experience product fit collapse. And so every time I see people speaking about AI replacing humans, I shrug. I’m taking many discussions and bold statements about that with a big pinch of skepticism.

Missing Human Component of AI #

Now, it’s not that AI can’t solve problems, although it does have some severe limitations in doing so. It’s that we always focus so intensely on the benefits of AI, often forgetting, overlooking or pushing aside the human experience with it.

Experience created by humans, with attention to human’s needs and intentions, designed and built and tested with humans, embedding human values and working well for humans. If anything, we should be more obsessed with humans, not with AI.

If anything, AI amplifies the need for 4 things:

• Authenticity
  A shift from generic and fast high-fidelity prototypes to actual products with embedded values, beliefs, opinions.
• Curation
  Content, features, priorities, reviewed and approved by humans.
• Critical thinking
  Ability to raise uncomfortable questions and raise red flags.
• Strategy
  Briding the gap between the current state and future state, considering user needs and business needs.

Surely, AI can spin up rough prototypes quickly, but getting it to an actual working product requires work. Somebody must orchestrate the process and finesse the experience. And it requires thorough strategic work.

And that's a big change upon us.

We're Moving From Tactics to Strategy #

Yes, designer’s tasks will surely change. We probably won't be pushing pixels around and hunt annoying bugs for hours, but perhaps that's a good thing. Instead, we'll be more strategic — shaping the vision of the project, planning for success, and curating experiments to run.

Still, with many AI experiences, we will need to rely on people in the loop — orchestrating the design, the development, the product management, and everything in-between — instead of moving pixels or fixing annoying bugs. And perhaps that's a good thing.

No technology can create clarity, structure, trust and care out of poor content, poor metadata, and poor value for end users. Personally, I don’t think that any AI can out-care, out-love or out-trust that level of attention that humans bring to the table.

If we design with humans in mind, consider human's needs and wants and struggles, we can help users and businesses bridge that gap in a way AI never could.