It’s the hottest topic of the moment, following the release in November 2022 of ChatGPT everyone started talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and its consequences on our lives. In the world of design and copywriting, there are many fears and worries about their impact: are we going to end up unemployed, overwhelmed by machines? Do our professions still make sense with the constant evolution of technology?
The growth of AI during the 21st century
AI (Artificial Intelligence), or AI in English (for Artificial Intelligence) is a set of tools and techniques used to create machines capable of simulating human intelligence and its behaviors, such as reasoning, planning or creativity.
In 1997, the Deep Blue program defeated the world chess champion hands down.
In 2022, the painting created by artificial intelligence MidJourney won the art competition at the annual Colorado Art Fair. 25 years separate these two events during which we were able to observe the growth of machines: AIs are present in our daily lives whether by voice recognition(Alexa, Google Home, Siri…) or by visual recognition(Face ID, Google Lens, machine translation …) they are everywhere around us.
The representation of AIs in science fiction and pop culture(Ex Machina (2014), The Matrix (1999), or even Blade Runner (1989)) has greatly contributed to the fears that are raised today: Will machines overtake humans? Will we ever be dominated by super intelligence?
Don’t worry! … Or not quite
Artificial intelligence was initially imagined to accompany humanity in its needs, but new technologies allow us to constantly evolve our requests and push the limits of what is possible even further. In 2021 the startupPlayform.io trained an AI to imitate Beethoven’s style, to finish his 10th symphony using the notes he left after his death. The very convincing result makes us wonder about the limit between human and artificial intelligence, so hard it is to determine it.
The use of AIs in art is also a matter of great debate, since intelligence feeds on existing works, works that were themselves created by humans in the past, Does this fall under the definition of plagiarism? How can we, as artists, appropriate art that has not been conceived entirely and exclusively by us? And above all, what role does the artist play in the creative process?
To try to answer these questions, Jonathan Larradet in the podcast “Machine Machine: Design & AI” of Design Masterclass, tells us how he used AIs in his professional life as an artist. Jonathan explains that the secret to the successful use of AI is not to see it as a finished work solution, but as a tool to simplify one’s workflow. Thus, the artist, the designer, the human, must adapt his creativity so that it is not replaceable, but indispensable to the use of the machine, and use AI to feed his reflection, his work, and save time. To make it an ally in a way.
The limits of machine learning
We have all seen the Tay chatbot, a failed example of AI, which in a few hours had become racist, misogynistic, and anti-Semitic (and so on…). An artificial intelligence only processes the data that is transmitted to it, in this sense it is already limited. This is the key point to remember!
Charles Tijus, professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Paris 8 and director of the Laboratoire des Usages en Technologies d’Information Numériques (LUTIN) for the magazine sciences et avenir explains: “[…] Letting ourselves be led by the machine that dictates our preferences without understanding the underlying mechanisms… that is the danger! With the prospect of the emergence of two “cognitive classes”, especially in schools: on the one hand, rather privileged children who would be active towards AI and, on the other hand, less educated children who would consume it passively and could, for example, find themselves under the influence of an AI propagating ideologies.”
Thus, if an AI can lead us to new possibilities of creation and skills, its limits lies in the use we make of it, staying active, instilling it with our originality and transmitting our emotions, without which it cannot function properly.
Another limitation that is being talked about a lot, is the lack of empathy and emotion of an AI and this is a very important point in the design community, because if it is a tool for creativity, we must remember that creativity is more than just the ability to generate ideas. AIs absolutely cannot replace the connection and human interactions that make us like or dislike a work: sensitivity, depth, meaning.
What future for employment and creative professions?
A 2021 study tells us that in 60% of cases, machines can perform tasks better than humans. For example, robots can work tirelessly on repetitive tasks without getting tired, which is very useful in industries. In more computational areas, algorithms can compute and analyze data at a speed and accuracy that cannot be expected of a human (according to another study, 20% faster).
But then, if AIs are already able to perform tasks as complex as medical diagnosis, can we worry about less “skilled” jobs? According to the ILO (International Labour Organization) projections at the time of the Initial Report for the Global Commission on the Future of Work nearly 85% of jobs could be automated by 2035.
AI has already shown its value in augmenting or even replacing human creativity in many more technical fields, but within the artistic community as we have seen, the place of the human is central: their empathy, emotion, ability to understand needs and propose unique solutions related to their experience, social class and culture are essential. Machine learning will increasingly be used to create or enhance art, music and other forms of creative expression, not replace them. It is more likely that AI will simply complement and assist human creativity, rather than dethrone it.
Concrete examples of productivity tools that we like
At Alexem Studio, we use artificial intelligence to facilitate our workflow because we believe it is the way of the future. We go with the flow, as they say!
Many of these benefits are already available in the softwares we use every day. Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite (and its AI Adobe Sensei) is flooding us with small but very effective advances to allow us to use our softwares even faster (hey automatic clipping). Canva too. Every time you ask it to resize a post automatically, it’s an AI at work.
Conversational agents such as ChatGPT or Jasper are inexhaustible resources of ideas for our writing, we love to push their limits to feed our thoughts and create original content.
Deep learning tools like Dall-e, Fontjoy, or mycolor.space also help us greatly in finding the inspiration to design the beautiful visual identities we deliver to our clients.
Conclusion
Finally, the real issue of machine learning is not really whether AIs will replace our jobs, especially in the design and copywriting fields, where it is pretty sure that our jobs will still be necessary for artificial intelligence to work. The real challenge is to find a way to continue to create these tools as technological developments to aid creation and efficiency, while ensuring that future generations can access technology in all strata of society and in all developing countries, to reduce technology-related inequalities.
Nevertheless, there is one last concern whose future is difficult to predict, that of High-Level Machine Intelligence (HLMI): the hypothesis that artificial intelligence will be able to significantly exceed human intelligence in the future. According to a 2019 survey of AI and machine learning experts by Oxford and Yale universities, there is a 1 in 3 chance that AI will surpass HI by 2062… Makes you ponder!
What about you, what are your AI-related fears? Do you already see crucial help for your professional and personal workflow? What issues are related to your industry?
One Response
thanks for info