Design x Ai Harbinger, Trainer, Consultant, & Speaker :: Chief Exploration Officer @ Superunknown Studios
I think there's a lot of smart business leaders out there that know they'll have to invest time & money & create new roles for Design x Ai in the short term before they can reap the benefits. But maybe if they stall long enough... who knows? Half the time, half the cost, half the people, same or better quality. That's how this was supposed to work, right? Well, it's not actually panning out that way. I've been noodling with the potential relationships between Ai & design for about 8 years at this point, and even I'm surprised at how much work I've had to put into building frameworks and how much pre-engineering I have to do before I have a fully operational and armed battle station. Yes, I can create a high-quality, holistic brand experience from scratch in 3 - 4 days. But I had to spend 8 months to build the system to do it. *And it's not even a very complex framework*. My lesson: Redlining the potential of Ai for design requires a significant investment. Harsh reality no. 2: You'll be committing innovation hara kiri if you try to replace too much creative talent with Ai. Relying too heavily on Ai in the place of human talent is the equivalent of relying too heavily on oversees manufacturing: 1. Amazing technical capabilities and world-class technology. 2. Cost-effective. (see: cheap) 3. Agile infrastructure. (see: dispensable) 4. Potential for high-quality output. 5. Original ideas: non-existent. 6. Legit innovation? Ha! 7. Good chance someone else is getting the same output. 7. The potential to commoditize your entire company? Magic 8 Ball says, "Signs point to yes". I try to push the creative boundaries of Ai every day. I try to break it. I try to get it to do things that people say it can't do. And the truth is, I can get it to do a lot of creative tasks at a level that surprises people. But I can't train it to live the hot mess of human life, or have a creative's feel for when to set the trend and not follow, or have a designer's intuition for when there's a need for something that isn't being verbalized or documented. Smart business leaders know this. I hope. But that dream kinda got a foot hold and it's tough to let go of, right? 99 times out of 100, that's not how its going to go. "So you're telling me there's a chance..."
