AI is going through its Wild West stage. And, well, now’s the time to be fearless, knowledgeable and use AI for designer’s creative needs, letting the software work for us rather than us for it. Let’s fight for the right to be in charge.
(I suggest the following be read aloud in Jimmy Stewart’s voice In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance for best tonal affect.)
Some folks are afraid that before too long a stampede of AI-produced images will ravage and pillage our field. Are we ready to surrender?
Will designers, like the buffalo, be decimated by marauding bands of media moguls who want to replace design thinking with the aggregation of tried-and-true formulae that reduce creativity to a series of algorithms?
No? NO!
Artificial intelligence can be a force for good or bad depending on how it is used. It offers visionaries an opportunity to open new frontiers, to explore territories that have been only imagined. It should not be allowed to lay claim to any expanse where designers freely roam.
When Photoshop was introduced, some smart yet short-sighted folks mourned the loss of brain and handwork that had defined the field for a hundred plus years, but quickly the software was trained, tamed and put to use as the designer’s most valuable tool. The same concerns about AI are being bandied about—not that there are not red flags—threats galore about the dangers of stolen IP, false truth and invented reality … but false has been true for ages. AI has dangers built into it, but we must be prepared for them and certain it cannot come a-trespassing onto our range, causing a-ruckus, or ravage and ruin. AI needs domesticating, and now’s the time to do it. And pronto!