Dear Amigos,
40-degree heat, wildfires, mass immigration, layoffs, water shortages, and data centers. It seems the world is reaching a tipping point. And here we are, designing the social media communication for the next John Doe that walks into the agency, creating that silly post no one asked for, and pretending life is business as usual. I wonder, daily, how I as a designer can make the world a better place. This is a designer’s confession on AI, ecological fallout, and whether it’s time to shut down the computer for good.
For starters, we are all part of the problem now. Designing without using Artificial Intelligence, or not having it as part of the process, seems silly. The world around us expects us to deliver faster and stronger because of the existence of this new service—and listen, pay attention, because it is a service, not just a tool. We ask, and we are given. Like food delivery: you call for a pizza, you get your pizza. You ask for a five-second video of a woman walking in a park in a London-like scenery, and you get it. Not exactly as you imagined, probably, but you get it.
My point is, we are all becoming addicted to this service. It is part of our creative flow, and there is apparently no going back. The impact of this service on our daily lives seems positive on the surface; it indeed makes my work easier—on steroids, even—and gives me the opportunity to operate almost like a full agency with a tiny team. But honestly, what are we doing?
The ecological and social consequences of the power we are giving to this machine are astonishing. It is not like an oracle, yet it is expected to be trusted, to be a know-it-all. But it is biased—a perfect recipe for fake news, inaccurate information, and political chaos.
I guess what this designer’s confession is trying to say is that if we actually wanted to make the world a better place, we’d be better off switching careers to become a woodworker or something similar and turning off my computer for good. We are all wondering what the next big thing we can create is, but maybe creating and producing is just adding more contamination. This is quite a depressing note on a warm day in August with a broken A/C, but it is also a reflection of what we’ve become and how unsustainable this new way of doing things really is.
I have no solutions, just concerns—and a confession of sadly being part of the problem, because we all are, one way or another.
I don’t believe creatives will be replaced; we will just evolve, like the whales that were once on land and then conquered the seas. We will have the ability to deliver even more amazing work for smaller budgets and with fewer people. So yes, things will change, but that’s evolution, baby: adapt to survive, or become a victim of natural selection? Is it possible to stay relevant in the industry without being part of this AI bubble?
The one thing I am certain about is that if we continue down this road and the people in power don’t change the rules of the game, we might not have an ocean left to conquer after all. So if I eventually disappear, it’s because I’ve opened a woodworking shop or moved to the mountains like Zarathustra.
And yes, I’ll probably ask Gemini to correct the grammar mistakes in this article once I am done.
Since you are really into design and AI, you might be interested in these other articles and resources:
How to use Figma without feeding AI with your design
