Creativity is human
Thoughts on the future of work in the age of AI
Illustration by Mimi Leung
“I got two years of school left. AI scares the hell out of me. I’m kinda wondering if design is still gonna be an industry in 10 years. Honestly, [I] have been considering dropping out and getting into a trade for stability. Was curious to hear your thoughts.”
I’ve heard this question so many times that I keep prepared responses in a desktop file called “AI Jitters: Frequently Answered Questions.” I am seriously considering packaging them as a commercial line of notecards, with illustrations generated by an AI image program, like the visuals generator Midjourney, which embodies the worst fears of artificial intelligence come to life.
Just for fun, though, I fed the prompt “Is there still gonna be a design industry?” into ChatGPT. The AI’s answer—I sometimes wonder if machines are deliberately lulling us into a false sense of security before they take over the world—echoed my own considered response. This is what it spit out:
“Design is the concept or proposal for an object, process, or system. The word design refers to something that is or has been intentionally created by a thinking agent. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design.”
The only difference between our two responses is that AI’s phrase “thinking agent” replaces my preferred “human being.” AI does not go out on a limb by assuring a bright future for humans, nor does it rule one out either (sly devil).
However, if “thinking agents” like me and AI confidently say that designers will NOT be displaced, who’s to disagree? For the moment, creativity continues to be the province of the human spirit, regardless of the form or medium it takes. Creativity still requires the fusion of a brain’s neurotransmitters to spark something truly creative. Although, before AI, much of the global design practice was systematized (e.g., the Swiss grid, etc.), the design industry continues to prize originality over that which is aggregated by even the smartest machine. So, in response to the worried student’s email, as long as human-centered creativity is a valued commodity, I urge him to stay in school!
There will be design. There will be industry. There will be art. For now.
Nonetheless, the future is not (entirely) preordained. Unprecedented ideas shoot out of humans faster than particles in a hadron collider. A slippery word, “creativity” is a combination of predictable and unknown, mysterious and even mystical forces. I, for one, could not have predicted that the process of designing would change as radically as it did when the Macintosh was introduced in 1984. Note that I said process, but I also imply output. The concern some of us expressed back when the Newtonian Apple fell on our heads was twofold:
- Competence: With the right computer skills, “anyone” can design something.
- Relevance: With everyone competent, that would leave “trained” designers without raison d’être.
But we quickly learned that just having skills with programs did not mean we lost the ability to exercise creative talents. Because of the learning curve, not everyone could (or chose to) design directly on a computer, fostering a transitional generation of assistant and apprentice designers who concentrated on production. Predictably, many of them garnered the chops to design on their own. Currently, new cohorts of designers are starting to use AI, and when mastered, they will be the next creative leaders.
Perhaps something similar occurred in the 1450s when Gutenberg produced his bible, composed entirely with the first movable type. I can imagine the trepidation of scores of professional monastic scribes jumping out of their habits over the loss of their jobs to a staggering new technology. Some stuck to old methods (others made jam), but over generations, the majority joined the Gutenberg revolution—and took control—as printers, illuminators, or both.
Today, the transitional 1980s digital generation has largely aged-out, leaving room for the next wave to create anew with advanced tools, and to design in different manners, some that we cannot even begin to consider. Many of the early computer adopters will inevitably become obsolete. But these days, with the volume of online upgrade tutorials that are more user-friendly, there will always be fresh new waves of tech-savvy and creative designers to fill the void. My nervous students are fortunate to be present at the beginning of a creative adventure rooted in both invigorating potentials and faddish follies.
There is a huge space for imagination, but of a different kind than earlier. I predict that AI-driven aptitude tests will help determine someone’s chances of thriving in the growing creative professions. There are already a slew of creative realms (and job titles) to be filled. I recall when the term “creative director” was first coined to define Milton Glaser’s position as on a higher plane than what was traditionally designated “art” or “design director,” and now we have an alphabet soup of nomenclature: CCO (“chief creative officer” and “chief content officer”), CSO (“chief strategic officer”), CNO (“chief narrative officer”), and so on. Whereas “manager” and “director” were formerly the most prestigious titles, “officer” is now the popular suffix. In fact, today there are virtually infinite “creative-this-and-that” variations.
With the change in titles, the traditional toolkit and, thus, the expectations placed on designers have transformed. Like when phototype usurped metal and wood type, the means of production changed, and so too did the jobs. The more impactful revolution came when the computer changed what, how, and where designs were conceived—and by whom. A field that was rooted in handicrafts was automated, but rather than reducing the number of designers, the democratization of “desktop publishing” created greater demand for designers and illustrators, and new challenges too. The internet quickly established fresh opportunities for those willing to foresee and retool for the future.
I am sensitive to designers’ fear of obsolescence. It is a lot of stress for talented people whose work is stuck in the headlights of progress. Yet, despite the beckoning wizardry of AI models, true genius is far from being battered by machine intelligence. Now is a good time for rampant experimentation.
I’m not, as a rule, an infernal optimist, but as a design “historian,” I’ve seen proof from era to epoch that creativity is transmutable and transformative. Generative artificial intelligence is not the end game—creative people will not forfeit free thought and deed to techno-surrogates.
Although there are many ways to give the appearance of being (“a”) creative through AI, there are many of us who believe singular expression and idiosyncratic vision are necessary to maintain our creative humanity. There will be many iterations of artificial creativity. But it is still easy to know the difference between real and synthetic talent. Last I looked, quirky achievement has not gone the way of the dinosaurs, despite the latest hi-res screen iterations of incredibly ultra-realistic AI-generated dinosaurs.