It's on everybody's mind these days:
Will AI take my job? Because it's faster than me, more efficient, and it might be more creative than me. Why would somebody hire me?
Well, I am actually personally not concerned about my work. I want to share two reasons with you so that you can think about and perhaps be less worried about your work. If you understand a little bit about human psychology, let's get started.
Here are two stories for you to think about:
Number One, why is it that in a world where, let's say, fashion, for example, you can buy high-quality work that is manufactured in a big factory in China, and it's really cheap to produce? Why, when people can buy high-quality clothes from that factory, do the richest people in the world go and pay way more money, like a hundred times or more, for an old Italian tailor to make a handmade shirt or suit for them? It's way slower, and the quality of his sewing might not be as good as the huge factory's. This person might make more mistakes. Of course, we can debate what quality is, but it's way less efficient to do it that way. Still, the richest people in the world choose that route. Why? It's because of a simple human thing: If everybody is doing that, and I want to show that I am special, that I am going to do something different, even if it's less efficient and costs more money, because I want to signal to others that I am a rich person and that I can afford the best. The best could be high quality or organic food. Why would people pay more for organic food when it might be less efficient and more expensive? Because they tell themselves a story that this is better and healthier, and this is what they want to do. I think the same is going to happen with service providers like us designers.
Now, here's another point or story to think about. When I started my career as a designer a few years ago, I used to work in an advertising agency. It was a fancy office with creative office design, and clients would come into our office. I asked the account manager why the clients would spend so much time and money coming to our office when they could have just stayed in their own office or had Zoom calls. He told me,
'Look, they want to come into our office. They want to leave their boring office and come to the creative space where they see the magic happen. They are buying creative services, and they want to have the creative experience. They want to come into our office, see all these creative people doing the magic, be served nice coffee, and have the experience. People want to be part of the creative magic.'
What I want you to take away from the second story is that, at the end of the day, if you think you're a designer selling web design or logo files, that's not all you're selling. Yes, that's part of it, just like when you go to a restaurant, you buy the food, but you also buy the atmosphere, the service, the music, the experience of going to a restaurant.
People working with us creative people are buying the experience of working with a creative person who helps them solve their business problems. They enjoy coming to our office, shaking our hands, and engaging in small talk. This is the experience of buying creative services for them.
With these two things in mind, I want you to understand that you can definitely use them to win over AI. Even if many people in the world use AI tools to get the job done faster, cheaper, and maybe of high quality to some degree, people at the top who have money and want to buy experiences will want to work with a person. They want somebody to shake their hand and give them the confidence that they're making the right decision and that this solution will save their business.
So, here's a kind of cliche but true statement: You can't win against AI if you're competing solely on speed, efficiency, and generating a high number of ideas. You will never win that race. But the one thing you can win against AI is that you are human. You operate in the real space, not stuck inside a computer. By using these unique human qualities, it will be very difficult for AI to compete with you. Celebrate your humanity and uniqueness. I'm pretty confident that it will keep me and hopefully you in business as well.
