The time when designers lived with a calligraphic pen and a stencil in hand, making cutouts of photographs and overlays on acetates, is long gone. We are no longer in an era where selecting pixels by pixels to change colour or waiting three hours for computers with 260 MB of memory to process an image was the norm.
Today, we live in a time where it is increasingly easy to create, and designers can quickly tackle briefings with the help of thousands of online resources for artistic creation, such as image banks, millions of free fonts, and community databases where not only ready-to-use templates can be found but also questions of all kinds and any degree can be clarified.
Because all of this is possible, there is also a growth of informal designers who, due to their keen sense of trends or even a “knack for it,” use free online tools to create their own concepts or to appropriate others’ and make them their own.
A professional designer may feel frustrated, arguing that only they possess the ability to add value due to the intangible nature of their creativity and their attention to things that the untrained eye does not see.
But what happens when creation doesn’t even start with human interpretation?
Every day, new tools are born that use artificial intelligence to interpret a written command for visual product creation, and with this, dangers of artificial intelligence emerge.
These tools and software have come as a cloud hanging over the heads of designers and copywriters, where the rain appears to be imminent unemployment, as in these programs, being as specific as language allows is enough for AI to create an image so faithful to the request that sometimes it becomes impossible to distinguish whether an image was artificially generated or has the “human touch.”
For this discussion, it is no longer people creating visual identities with templates on canva.com, nor is it a friend who installed pirated Photoshop and has a “knack for it.” Here, it is a deeper issue. It is about the destruction of preconceptions we all have regarding a manifestation that until now was considered perfect and uniquely human.
Historically, humans have always been placed at the centre of things. Whether man was created by divine intervention with the capacity to create beauty and goodness or evolved to have unique abilities that set them apart from other animals, in the philosophical context of humanism, creativity is considered an exclusive characteristic of humanity, an expression of our unique intelligence, emotions, and imagination. Humanism values individuality and subjectivity in human beings, highlighting that artistic creation is a genuine manifestation of identity and the artist’s capacity. In this sense, art is a form of communication and personal expression that can convey feelings, thoughts, and unique ideas inherent to the human condition.
However, with the exponential growth of technology and digital understanding systems, it is impossible to deny that, at some point, these certainties that have served as a pillar for creation for so long may be challenged by existential doubts about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
In the midst of this, machines create things.
There are fewer and fewer limits to what artificial intelligence can do in terms of creation. For example, GPT-3, the chatbot, has replaced how we access information, brainstorm, get inspired, and write. Tools like DALL-E 2 and Midjourney allow users to create realistic or graphically specific images with a simple description. Beyond these, Adobe’s new tools, such as generative fill and firefly, are giving users the ability to remove unwanted objects effortlessly, insert precisely what was missing in a composition, automatically correct colour, create vectors and text compositions in a single click, and even compose music in real-time to accompany a video with just an indication of the tone and mood the soundtrack should have.
It immediately makes us want to believe that in a future nearer than we’d like to admit, professions like designers, photographers, and colourists, among many others, will cease to exist. For many, this is one of the main dangers of artificial intelligence.
However, the doctrine seems to diverge.
One may argue that a machine can’t produce art because it lacks consciousness. Therefore, it lacks free will and discernment to choose what results from a particular command, implying that it is not an artist but an executor.
On the other hand, it can also be considered that a computational decision in a neural network is so complex and involves so many variables that it is not clear that the result of a command cannot be considered a valid work of art.
One of the most common ways an AI is used to create art is through machine learning. This learning type of artificial intelligence allows computers to learn without being explicitly programmed. AIs can learn to create art simply by observing enormous amounts of existing art.
Thus, if we consider that an average person can process 10 to 15 images per second and compare it to the hundreds or thousands of prints that a computer can process in the same time frame, it is possible to deduce that humans would never be a match when it comes to consuming visual culture.
Let’s not be frightened by what artificial intelligence can mean.
In a world with so many fast changes, it is vital to discern the future of those who properly create visual or written products.
First, these tools indeed relieve and, in some instances, make certain job functions or professions obsolete. But this reality is not new. Consider what happened to craftsmen or factory workers during the Industrial Revolution with the automation of production lines. It is undeniable that certain positions cease to exist as we have known them, but it is also undeniable that when a particular technology becomes an industry standard, new branches are created to deal with the technical implications of these advancements. This is evident in creating new jobs and roles where workers can transition.
Furthermore, it is crucial to be aware of what the worker still is. For now, we can look with enthusiasm at these new tools, knowing that they can be integrated into everyday life to optimize workflows in ways that were not thought possible before or even open doors to create something innovative.
At this moment, a tool like Chat GPT can write the script for the next back-to-school campaign or come up with the perfect slogan for a new mobility product for the elderly, but it will always do so without precise awareness of the surrounding issues and variables in a particular geography or audience. Above all, this tool lacks empathy for others, which is crucial for the ethical and conscientious creation of visual and written products, and that is indeed one of the main dangers of artificial intelligence.
Lastly, it is normal for us to fear what artificial intelligence may mean for the future collectively. Beyond that, it is crucial to discuss the ethical implications of using these AI models, especially concerning copyright, intellectual property, bias, and discrimination in results, among other concerns.
Just as in Plato’s allegory of the cave, there is a differentiation between reality and shadows; we can compare artificial intelligence to the shadow projected on the wall. AI can provide a limited and superficial representation of design, just as shadows cast only reflect a distorted reality of the proper form of things. So, just as prisoners in the cave cannot experience the reality outside it, artificial intelligence lacks the emotional depth and creativity inherent in the human mind.
Designers, like the one who leaves the cave and contemplates the outside world, can transcend the limitations of AI, exploring new ideas, concepts, and unique approaches
In the creative freedom and individuality of the designer, we find the true essence of design, philosophically grounded in the idea that it is always made by people for people, allowing us to escape artificial shadows and achieve authenticity and depth that only the human mind can provide.
Designers are not dead; they are alive and well. The future of design is intelligence, so it can be concluded that, for now, the more direct competition is with a friend who has ‘a knack for it’ rather than the dangers of artificial intelligence.
