Artificial intelligences have also become good at creative work. Will we designers still be needed in a few years?
Let’s start at the end because the talk about creative artificial intelligences more or less always ends on a sentence like this:
We have the ability to reason, imagine and think creatively, this allows us to come up with new ideas that are not limited only by the information we have been exposed to as is the case with artificial intelligences that are instead limited by the data they have been trained on and the algorithms they use.
As of today in 2023, this definition is essentially correct. So I might as well end the article here by closing the matter.
But I think dismissing it this way is a mistake. Thinking we are superior to someone else has never led to anything good in history.
Although we are talking about machines here, I think the argument is the same, it is a debatable point of view of course.
The fact is that the works pulled out of AIs are damn beautiful and done in seconds. I consider them to be creative and artistic, superior in quality to a lot of work done by us “creative” humans that really isn’t that creative.
They were made by a computer trained with billions of images and an algorithm that remixes them into something new.
And don’t we humans do the same?
Our ideas are remixes, just as artificial intelligences do.
The truth is, unless we are Einstein, our ideas are always the same but are reworked and combined to create a different thing. This remixing process allows individuals to take existing concepts and add their own perspective, experience and knowledge to create something new and improved. All the great artists and designers in history have reworked what they had seen and experienced. Let’s take the example of Picasso’s influences: traditional Spanish and French art, historical avant-gardes such as Cubism, Africanism and Surrealism, ancient art, particularly from Greece and Egypt, popular culture and Spanish folk art.
Picasso was able to absorb all these influences, which he then reworked, creating something new that became his personal style.
Don’t we ourselves have an algorithm that is our DNA? Forgive the stretch but I think you get my point. Some people are good at drawing and creating others are better with numbers, regardless of the influences of the environment. This is the “code” by which each of us was created.
I asked Midjourney, a well-known AI service that from your textual description creates an image, to come up with something with these characteristics taken from Picasso’s influences:
“an abstract composition combinig cubism, africanism and surrealism in oil painting style.”
Midjourney for each request returns 4 submissions, if you don’t like them you can ask for more. In a process that took no more than 10 minutes I finally chose these three images.
Honestly, if you didn’t know they were made with Midjourney, would you have noticed? keep in mind that these images are unique, there are no others like them in the world as well as for artwork made by us humans.
Then if the requests are for images suitable for use in illustrating a magazine, book or website, the results are built to your needs.
A few examples with different styles.
“femmina bella donna giapponese con katana sotto la neve in un giardino giapponese”
“black cat, bamboo, shodo, anime style”
“Full body of a samurai with a samurai mask helmet with a smile, tdark grey background, blue and orange and silverdetails, artstation, beautiful lighting, artstation, vibrant colors, rococo art, defined shape, photoshoot, studio lighting, cinematic pose”
“bambu forest with a very bright green in summer with a small little girl with a red dress which can be seen far away in anime style”
I don’t think anyone can say that they are ugly and cannot be used for commercial work, at most the current problem is the final resolution, which is often insufficient for printing but is fine for the web. Problem that will be overcome soon anyway.
And for logos how are we doing? there are plenty of services that make logos with AI but at the moment I have not found one that can return a stunning result, so many still create logos of more than sufficient quality for many companies. Adobe itself (the world’s largest creative software company for those who don’t know) is currently training its AI system, which is not currently available, using work done by designers using its software. So if you are a designer be aware that Adobe is using your work to cut you out of the market soon (if you don’t want it to use them you have to disable the preference, which is enabled by default from your Privacy preferences).
Here are some “logos” made with Midjourney (which was not born for this) with these requests:
“logo for a software company, very simple no small details, minimal, black and white, white background”
If you make the right requests the logos that come out are not that bad, of course they are only bitmaps, no vector which in logos is critical but again I think it is only a matter of time to get a logo in all possible formats.
So I get to my answer of the question posed in the title. Yes, I think that unfortunately for us designers, illustrators and artists the hard times are coming when only medium to large companies that will have the financial resources and the will, will commission work from humans. Everyone else will turn to AIs who will provide more than enough quality work for most clients in a few minutes and for a few dollars.
Will this lower the average quality of what we’ll see? Unfortunately I think the quality will go up, I don’t know about you but I see a lot of terrible logos and really poorly done illustrations around… so the future “Made by human” branding, which I’m sure we’ll see soon, will only be worthwhile for those who are really great at their jobs and will continue to do such good work that they’ll be able to keep and find new clients.
For all the others who will lose their jobs to AI, all that will be left to do is to try to stop them by voting for the party “The League of Humans,” which will probably be born soon and will take a lot of votes. Of course, the party logo was made with AIs 
“circular logo for a human league political party with a schematic brain, no text very simple no small details, minimal, white background” + I added the texts by hand, using the Arial font of course.
