Artificial intelligence: What future for design professions?

Barely arrived in the creative professions, AIs are beginning to shake up the practices of designers. In a few months, new artificial intelligence tools to generate images from texts have aroused curiosity and have amazed with their results. Slab, designed by the American company OpenAI, and midjourney, available on Discord messaging, have been a dazzling success. Massive quantity of productions, surprising quality images, professional technique, speed… AIs do in seconds a job that a professional would take days to do. These tools arouse both enthusiasm and concern.

Designer and co-founder Volumiques editions, which produce interactive books and games, Etienne Mineur takes a close interest in these tools that raise questions. During an educational conference at Intuit Lab Paris, he enlightened students on the uses of these AIs, their advantages and their disadvantages. How can a designer tame AI the right way? "That allows you to open up avenues towards which you would not have thought of going, it opens up possibilities”, explains Etienne Mineur on this tool which allows you to quickly create style boards and let yourself be surprised by creative ideas.

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“After the position that we must have, it is that we're the one guiding the AI ​​to come up with an interesting picture at some point. Otherwise it's too easy, it's a flowing tap of images”, he adds. The production stage is reduced in favor of more time devoted to the choice of images. While the images generated by AI already have a “finished” aspect, the challenge will also be to be an educator on their place in the creative process. Unlike non-professionals who will use these images without retouching, professionals will have to bring their own aesthetic, use them in their own way. AI is becoming a tool like any other. 

“We have to manage to train it. We manage to do it by sharpening our eyes, having a visual culture, references. Designers, graphic designers and art directors will have to cultivate themselves even more to be able to dialogue with a machine that has all the references. and then make an informed decision. It's really a cooking recipe”, explains Etienne Mineur, for whom AI will push professionals to show more originality to stand out. 

To avoid falling into the trap of standardization set by AI, professionals will have to “going back and forth between AI and their traditional practice” : “If you only dive into AI, you risk falling into normalization. It's like in the kitchen where you can make a dish that looks very nice and then easily that isn't so exceptional when you taste it. It's this bluff side of AIs”. Algorithmic biases of AI are also risks that must be circumvented. The tool's worldview is based on data from algorithms, and it's no surprise that it reflects a very stereotypical, prejudice-filled image of our society while magnifying its ills. 

“AI can provide emotion but we are the ones projecting it onto it. AI simulates. Things like empathy, common sense, she ain't got it. We will have to focus on things where it is less good than us”, he assures us of this tool which will gradually be integrated into practices. Intervening at the beginning of the production stages, AI is nevertheless a source of concern for the professions present at these stages. 

To envisage the future with these artificial intelligence tools, schools have their role to play. " It is up to the students to imagine the future and new practices. Often older designers, wanting to be less interested in AI, don't want to try. In schools, students are going to have the time to experiment, without having the wall of the client, the money and the deadline”. The ball is in the students' court.