CAN AI REPLACE DESIGNERS?
Everyone talks about artificial intelligence (AI) and how is going to revolutionize the world as we conceive it. But is it really that implanted? Most of the times we confuse the work of machine learning instead of AI.
AI maximum expression is to emulate the human brain. The most used definition is from Michael Haenlein, AI is “the ability of a system to correctly interpret external data, to learn from that data and use that knowledge to achieve specific tasks and goals through flexible adaptation”. The objective of this technology is to embrace jobs that involve doing repetitive tasks and gradually perform more intuitive ones.
But, what about design? Will it be replaced by artificial intelligence? The thing is that design has a very difficult core skill to imitate, creativity. Eventhough a machine can learn and predict outcomes, when it comes to the creation of new concepts the results are unpredictable. For instance, The Grid claims that they have an AI that builds web pages based on the content users want to create and spread. The fact is that the platform never did what it was promised. The websites that were created where chaotic. Furthermore, some people that paid for the service never obtained a working product and lost the money of the subscription.
We could say that the designer cannot be replaced as only humans are capable of the subjective perception of things. But, this does not mean that AI cannot help. There are some parts on product development where there are tasks that can be automated. Moreover, AI can be used to learn about user needs and report them in an analytical way. Then, designers can focus in more strategic product decisions, increasing efficiency.
Artificial Intelligence has to be addressed on decreasing the workload of the designer, focusing on performing tasks that the designer does which do not add value per se, they are just a path to reach the final concept.
