The Danger of AI is Weirder Than You Think – Janelle Shane
My favorite video this week was of Janelle Shane discussing the weirdness of AI. She compares an AI brain to that of a worm brain, essentially explaining that humans put AI up on this pedestal of sci-fi famous artificial intelligent beings when in reality AI is not Jarvis. AI will do what we ask it to, but it might not do what we want it to. When one experiment told an AI to “go fast”, the results were wobbly bodies, flaying body parts, and silly walks. These answers weren’t necessarily wrong per say, after all, humans just established the goal of “go fast”, not how to go fast. I found myself smiling the whole time watching the video, laughing at the absurdity and weirdness of the AI simulations “messing up” in fantastic ways. What can the weirdness of AI teach us about our own design processes? The weirdness of AI illustrates the absurdity that can come from thinking outside of the box, for better or for worse. It can teach us to rapidly prototype, execute ideas with achieving the goal even if it’s not pretty or fine-tuned. It can teach us the value of adding humor to the process too. It also forces us to ask questions about our process and our goals. What are we really trying to achieve? What did we really have in mind that maybe we didn’t realize at first? The weirdness of AI doesn’t have to be the defining aspect of our design processes, but it can be a warm-up, a starting point for rejuvenating creative juices.
Automation Threatens to Make Go Obsolete – Rob Peart
In an op-ed piece for AIGA’s Eye on Design, Rob Peart writes that a large portion of graphic design is prescriptive and the workflow of designers is ripe for automation – a potential hiccup for the industry down the line. User interfaces are becoming more sonic, haptic, and multi-sensory. Where does this leave the designer? Will we adjust or perish? Yes, certain aspects of automating the creative process are scary and make me worry about my role in the industry, but more often than not I think, isn’t this near future a ripe opportunity for designers?
AR and VR scenarios are still going to need set designers, sound designers, attempts to remain inclusive to all audiences, etc. The products featuring this emerging technology are still going to need a branding and marketing campaign. Design researchers will still need to do user testing, user research, pitches to stakeholders, etc. A few years ago I attended an AIGA talk where a panelist of designers discussed the future of design specifically as it pertained to jobs. ML, AI, VR, and AR were all mentioned as emerging fields but the most interesting part was the emphasis on roles that did not involve directly working with the nitty-gritty tech components. One woman spoke highly of the emergence of sound and space design particularly as it pertains to 2D, 3D, and 4D (is this a thing now?) spaces. Tools and portions of the design process may become more automated, but the human designers are still finding design problems, still doing the bulk of the communication to clients and customers, and still setting the aesthetics. I’m not worried about new tech….yet.