One of the more interesting things AI is exposing in design is how possessive we can become about our work.
We spend years developing a craft and, naturally, start to see the production of that work as ours. It becomes part of our professional identity. Then AI arrives and starts taking on parts of that production, often quickly and increasingly well. That can feel threatening, even when the outcome itself is perfectly good.
I suspect this human response sits behind a lot of the AI versus designer debate. We focus on whether AI can really design, whether craft is being lost, or whether designers need to change roles. But some of the resistance is probably much simpler: we don’t like giving up something we’ve always considered ours.
And that’s the change we’re going through. AI isn’t only changing how design gets produced. It’s forcing us to rethink our relationship with producing it, and how much of our identity we’ve attached to being the person doing the making.
