Can Designers Survive the AI Threat?

PART 1

Leading figures in the design industry discuss this important issue with T. K. Sajeev from NewspaperDesign.in. Renowned design consultant Dr. Mario Garcia is the first to share his insights.

Can Designers Survive the AI Challenge?

Yes, of course designers can survive AI for the simple reason that humans have the upper hand in the creative process. AI can help designers and illustrators with the heavy lifting—sort of like a crane (see my blog on this subject here: https://garciamedia.com/blog/ai-is-like-a-crane-doing-the-heavy-lifting-for-humans/). AI bots can make connections with content that is already somewhat connected. Humans can come up with ideas based on disconnected thoughts, images, shapes. That is what establishes the main difference between humans and robots. Having said that, AI will get better and better at doing things like automizing the layout of pages for print publications, something that several newspapers, especially in Scandinavia do. Take a look at the software available from Norway’s aptoma.com. (For more on this go here: https://wan-ifra.org/2022/05/schibsted-new-automation-tools-streamline-print-and-audio-production/). But, of course, this software works with a series of templates that accommodate all types of layout solutions. Human designers must create those templates and also supervise the end result of the pagination done by AI. So, humans will continue to play a key role. AI will be the crane doing some of the heavy lifting.

How Can Designers Use AI Positively?

I think that designers can use AI to stimulate their own ideas. This will require good prompt engineering—how the human and the robot communicate. I have experienced with prompting the bots with a detailed explanation of a specific design I wish to execute. I bring my ideas to the table, as if I was explaining them to a designer in my team. Then I get back solutions and sometimes ideas that I did not even think about. Again, the AI bot is a crane that assists me with my design ideas. AI helps to augment your idea palette. But it does not replace the designer. I also use Midjourney and DAll-E for illustration ideas, a springboard to further creative solutions.

Will AI Cut Off Designer Jobs?

I think AI will replace jobs where all a person does is to process data. I cannot imagine AI replacing art directors whose input and creativity is key to developing design concepts and illustration ideas.

Can the Human Creative Brain Overcome AI?

I still think that humans have the capacity to be creative, to connect the disconnected and create magic in the process. As designers in the media, that is what we do, what renders value to our presence in newsrooms. We can look at the content of a story and visualize dozens of ways to illustrate it. The robots are not capable of doing that, BUT they can be prompted to offer ideas. More and more AI is becoming more creative using generative algorithms, neural networks, and machine learning techniques. AI systems learn from large datasets and attempt to mime human creativity, creating music or helping with film scripts, for example.

I can’t predict where AI will be five or ten years from now—but more advanced and perhaps even more creative could be possible. Today, I see AI as helping us improve our own creative ideas, augmenting what we bring to the table via a prompt. AI can generate art by analyzing patterns and styles in existing artwork and producing new images that mimic those styles. The key word here is MIMIC. The human designer can go beyond MIMIC to create original concepts and ideas.

I have discussed the subject of Artificial Creative Intelligence in my blogs here: