American impressions, parts 5–7 / Design requiem
Hi friends, I’ve now published the final three parts of my Fulbright write-up:
Being a Fulbrighter · On the minor privileges and strains of a prestigious cultural programme.
Life in the North Carolina Piedmont · On trains and cities, guns and beauty, and tricky third-pint political conversations.
The national future · On violence and decline.
Thank you everyone for your encouragement on the series. I’ve had to write in part to untangle my own thoughts on what was a complex trip, but it’s heartening to see that others have appreciated my efforts. I hope you enjoy these concluding pieces.
And so what next?
For 20+ years I’ve been a long-term career planner: do this to unlock this which will help me get this. When I decided to go for the Fulbright I expected I’d then have a year to decide whether to return to industry or commit to academia. But I hadn’t accounted for the tech crash. I suspect most designers knew our field would eventually cave in, but I don’t think we expected the ground beneath our feet to turn so suddenly to quicksand.
It has not escaped my attention that I’m exactly the type of designer who would have struggled in this downturn. I’m very good but I’m also expensive and difficult, and right now businesses don’t want very good, expensive, and difficult: they want good enough, cheap, and compliant. So I suspect I’m already past the event horizon.
Amara’s Law: ‘We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.’ I expect digital product design will look quite similar in two years but unrecognisable in twenty.
I foresee two mid-to-long term trajectories for digital designers. The first option – remain an artefact jockey – is obviously a dead end. The second option is the subject of recent LinkedIn copium: since AI can never replace human taste (a contestable premise, but let’s move on), someone will still need to orchestrate the gen-AI interface variants, review the A/B data, and push for experiential coherence over the ‘throw it against the wall’ tendencies of automated design. And sure, there’s probably a legit role here, some sort of neo-creative-director-meets-AI-wrangler, but my guess is this role will need only a comparative handful of people.
In other words, I suspect eventually it’s either a) be displaced by AI, or b) push your peers underneath the AI displacement waterline. I want no part of it either way, so I think I’m retired as a designer. Although I’ll always solve problems in a designerly way, and I’m sure I’ll still dabble, I doubt I’ll ever design for clients again.
And so it’s ethics full-time, although since I’m tired of explaining the word ethicist I may at last be ready to call myself a philosopher of technology. I have a dissertation to finish (‘Where’s the Harm in A/B Testing?’), then a book or two to write, then probably a PhD to enjoy/survive. Glad to have you all with me as I navigate these new seas.
Cheers,
Cennydd
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