Tired to read about AI nonsense

[u/arnauddsj]

Sorry for the rant but I’m tired of all these messages from young people saying they quit freelancing or their graphic design studies because “AI can generate images.” So what?

You think a marketing or brand director is gonna fire their graphic designer and start creating visual campaigns themselves by prompting an AI? Then what, he sends his “ready to print” files (300dpi, with bleeds and all that shite) to the printer, who replies “Sorry, this isn’t even CMYK…”? Or probably the AI will generate the 100 banners in 10 formats the e-commerce team need for their affiliation campaign.

And now developers don’t even need to talk to UI designers anymore. They build faster with AI, so of course, they’ll just prompt the design themselves too.

Wait, never mind. Developers are gone too because AI took their jobs.

So I guess it’s just one CEO now, prompting all day.

Stop the nonsense. Maybe you're just looking for an excuse to give up or be lazy. And for those who are ready to get sh*t done, good for them, less competition.

[u/Own_Writer2427]

You're missing the point though. The problem is not that GD will disappear, it's that a company will need only one or two GD instead of hiring more since the use of AI helps do the work faster. So there will be a fierce competition between GD job seekers for limited positions.

[u/Pristine-Lie2847 → u/Own_Writer2427]

I think it's so naive to not want to have this discussion as it's relevant to the very people who make up this industry. I get that people don't like to talk about it, but it's happening.

[u/Own_Writer2427 → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

There is a lot of big egos in the field of Graphic Design. A LOT. The ones applauding IA are the most irritating ones.

[u/No-Way7911 → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

People here really don’t understand the business side of things

No one pays for graphic design. They pay for results. It makes zero difference to the suits whether the ad creative that got them 4.5% CTR vs 4.3% CTR was made by an AI or a designer

[u/ThyNynax → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

Unfortunately, it is a fact of life that when a new technology is invented…if you don’t learn to adopt it, someone else will.

That’s been true all the way back to something as simple as riding horses up to things as complicated as nuclear weapons and biotechnology. 

The US nuclear program started because Germany was already on the road. US politicians decide to ban stem cell research and a couple of years later China is reporting progress on cloning. 

AI and AGI won’t be any different. We either learn how to adopt it and regulate it, or you may literally have to start a war to stop someone else from using it.

[u/Pristine-Lie2847 → u/ThyNynax]

For sure and people should talk about it.

[u/double_fenestration → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

Im not against a discussion but how much more really needs to be said about it? I guess with each wave of AI improvements, the threat looms a bit larger but the impact remains more or less the same — clients may need fewer designers, and those that remain will need be compatible’ with AI (ie: some skill with prompt writing and catching AI oversights). It doesn’t sound great but if we don’t want to make a career change, then that’s the alternative, no?

The discussion about whether or not you care about the tide change isn’t really an essential one. Still this topic does in fact come up for discussion constantly in this sub but the same basic insights surface.

When folks want to share how they learned to use AI effectively, that would be a new conversation worth having. Until then it really comes across as unnecessarily fear-mongering. Just get ready to adapt and learn some new skills as best you can, right? Is there much more to say or share?

[u/Pristine-Lie2847 → u/double_fenestration]

As much as people need to say.

[u/double_fenestration → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

Sure, but my point is it’s the same things being said, so it’s not much of a ‘discussion that needs to happen’—per the comment I am replying to directly. People can and do say whatever they please whenever they like, Im not really concerned about that. I just don’t think there’s a conversation being ‘avoided’, moreso I think it hasn’t really evolved much and is primarily a lot of (understandable) stress and fear.

[u/Pristine-Lie2847 → u/double_fenestration]

I hear you, though just how you're commenting this other are allowed to create discussions and engage in discussions that they're interested in.

If there was no interest in these discussions, they would die. Best to just avoid them if they're not your concern or interest.

[u/double_fenestration → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

lol the irony is you are policing my participation. My question was pretty simple; what more needs to be said that hasn’t been?

I don’t think people are avoiding the topic, they’re just limited for how to respond and react (hence there’s an Ai thread probably every day here, maybe more than one).

Im curious, have people done anything to plan for the imminent impact of AI? I kinda feel like you can only really brace yourself mentally and maybe reassess your skillset but short of just preemptively jumping ship or embracing it idk what else can be done?

[u/Pristine-Lie2847 → u/double_fenestration]

I'm not policing you. Do what you want and others will do what they want as well.

[u/double_fenestration → u/Pristine-Lie2847]

i thought this was is a good discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/graphic_design/s/XW4OM2zrFQ

[u/buginabrain → u/Own_Writer2427]

Not only that, but if you are in a salaried position the automation of time consuming tasks will free you up to take on even more responsibilities with less team to help you and possibly at the same amount of pay or less.

[u/PudinStarved → u/buginabrain]

This happened to my last job. I worked remotely at a Marketing Agency that offered different design services (Meta Ads, Email Marketing, Social Media Design and Strategy, etc).

When we first started it was great to be a designer there! But at a certain point they started treating us as a factory. They laid off a bunch of designers while still acquiring more and more clients, filling the remaining designers with ungodly amounts of projects and work. I remember me and my colleagues crying and venting with each other after work!

I resigned one month ago and it has been the best decision. I'm still in contact with my colleagues, so they keep me informed about the status of the Design Team. Apparently, they noticed that less designers and more clients aren't working out, so they just hired a bunch of designers to keep up with all the projects they have in their pipeline.

So, I feel confident that designers are still needed 🙏

[u/gweilojoe → u/PudinStarved]

This is the life of a production designer - my advice is to learn what you can but also take as many chances/opportunities as you can to diversify your skill set and even move your career into different or adjacent areas. The worst path to travel as a creative is to remain as a production artists past the first 6-9 years of your career.

[u/Religion_Of_Speed → u/Own_Writer2427]

Exactly this, plus we will now be expected to utilize AI in our work and because of that will now be expected to take on duties not in the normal realm of design to a greater extent than recent times. "Graphic designer" now means motion designer, video editor, web designer, and web developer in some cases. Probably forgot a few things there too. I'm holding on to refusing to use AI beyond the occasional generative fill in Photoshop but I fear this is going to be quite difficult in the future.

Like pretend we're fish in a pond. AI isn't killing the fish, it's draining the water to make the pond smaller so only the super-adaptable and experienced fish will survive. Meaning there is no room for entry level positions, which means there's nobody coming up to be trained, and then we lose experience when the older designers retire. A similar thing happened in the trades, like welders and electricians. Different causes but it's the same end result, there was a huge dip in entry level workers and now we're running out of people who know how to do those jobs and all the experienced workers are retiring. That's just speaking for graphic designers, not all of the positions we will now fill because of the job duty expansion. That means for all the categories I listed above there will be the exact same problems, possibly amplified if they can't handle basic graphic design duties. Their employer will just find someone who can do both and will be okay with accepting less pay because if the market is that competitive companies can actually start an underpayment war. We'll be forced to take what we can get.

Alternatively, since generating AI images isn't all that difficult, there might be an exodus of experienced designers causing sort of the opposite problem. There won't be any senior positions, it'll all just be general graphic design aka AI prompter and the field will lose all upward mobility, then there's just no reason to go into the field, then we lose the true designers and only have AI prompters. You can pay an AI prompter a whole hell of a lot less and they can "do" the job of many. They do it poorly but the people in charge probably don't give a shit if it's better than what they can do. Side rant: Since when did someone with no experience become a measuring stick? "It's better than I can do" is a phrase for defending bad work that's becoming a lot more common. Maybe "it's better than what the competition is doing" would be a better measure.

I don't blame anyone for calling it quits and going off to find more stable work. I'm considering it myself, breaking my back working on cars or returning to the kitchen sounds a whole lot better than fighting with kids who are more familiar with AI than design. I'd prefer to work in an industry that I know will at least exist in 10 years.

[u/Own_Writer2427 → u/Religion_Of_Speed]

I agree with everything you said. I'm even considering changing careers myself. I'm sick of always adapt to the demands of companies, having to know every field related to GD. It's great to learn new things but when they all become requirements for a job interview, it's really annoying. I dont particularly like coding, and my previous company told me it would be better if i learn coding so they dont have to hire a developer. GD is just becoming ridiculous.

Plus as you've said, the new ones coming will be much better at AI than doing the real work, or will just be immersed in the thinking part rather than the doing part. For me AI gets in the way of GD. Automaton can be a good thing but AI will make designers lazy and only into thinking mode rather than thinking/doing mode.

[u/Religion_Of_Speed → u/Own_Writer2427]

It's a wild time. I just hope that the wheel turns fast enough for me to come out the other side as one of the few experienced designers left. The bummer is I'm right at the age where it would be wise to have my career kinda locked in. But shit will the world even be around for it to pay off?

[u/UncreativeTeam → u/Own_Writer2427]

Yeah, and the company owns all assets created by former employees. They just need to feed those into the AI model to generally replicate the style. And then you don't really need either GD and can hire a cheaper one to run the prompts and do cleanup work.

[u/Defiant_Ad_8445 → u/UncreativeTeam]

then it shouldn’t last long term since trends change fast, no?

[u/G00seLightning → u/Own_Writer2427]

as a young adult going into graphic design in college, it’s so terrifying because i can’t know with any certainty if i even have a chance of getting employed after graduation. with so few jobs being taken over by more experienced people, it feels like most people in Gen Z are just getting the short end of the stick, and that itself is the most terrifying to me, not knowing if whatever i do i’ll even end up getting a job at all

[u/gweilojoe → u/Own_Writer2427]

This has always been the case, just substitute the word “Ai” with “intern”, or “computer”, or “Digital Camera”… there’s always going to be a reason for people who pay people salaries to pay fewer salaries. Your job is to leverage the tools available to differentiate yours skills as being more valuable than this “box”, or “software”, or “technology”, or “unpaid college student”.