There’s no denying it - artificial intelligence will be a permanent fixture of the design industry in 2024 and beyond. Free image generation tools such as DALL-E and text-based ChatGPT, along with AI integrations across popular design platforms including Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma mean that the technology is a few clicks away for any aspiring designer, regardless of budget or experience.

So how does the next generation of designers feel about the increasing prevalence of AI technology? At Designit, we thought it would be interesting to find out.

After all, these are the people within the sector who will experience the most significant impact from AI. It will play a key role in shaping the nature of the work they do and their experiences in the workplace. It could even influence their career trajectories.

Following Designit’s recent AI residency at The School of Visual Arts, we decided to ask participants a series of questions about how they think AI will impact their role as well as the industry as a whole, and how they feel about the technology from a moral and ethical standpoint. The insights were fascinating, to say the least.

Optimism about the practicalities

Before ethical questions even come into play, design students expressed a desire to learn more about how AI tools can add value to their work from a professional perspective. This makes total sense: unless artificial intelligence can add some kind of tangible value to the creative process, making any kind of moral judgment about its usage is redundant.

But it seems that budding designers are largely being left to their own devices when it comes to figuring out how they should be using AI tools, and where they should be using them. Respondents to our survey wanted education on the capabilities of AI for design, alongside the moral and ethical discussions which they claim are most often the focus of AI-related discourse.

As it stands, the students who have experimented with using AI tools tend to use it as a form of virtual assistant. Checking spellings, brainstorming, creating mockups for placeholders and generating quick variations on a concept or theme were all cited as popular use cases.

In this context there’s a broad consensus of optimism around AI usage – it’s a new tool that designers appreciate having at their disposal. It even evokes comparisons with long-established digital office assistants such as Microsoft Word’s ‘Clippy’, and fits with a commonly accepted narrative of tech making our lives easier by reducing burdensome admin.

Simplicity of execution vs complexity of ethics

It’s tempting to simply extrapolate these practical benefits into an overall net good from an ethical perspective as well.

For instance, there’s an argument that using AI can help to level the playing field for designers from diverse backgrounds. Tools like spell check reduce language barriers for those working or studying abroad in a second language But weigh this up against the inherent bias AI has demonstrated against minorities and marginalized groups, and it suddenly becomes a much more contentious issue.

In fact, a whole host of thorny issues about the potential downsides of AI arise. Privacy is a key area of concern for many when taking a more holistic review of AI’s potential global impact, for example. However, the nature of the tasks that new designers are currently using AI for means it’s less of an issue in this specific context.

On the other hand, copyright ownership for AI-generated design was raised as a concern by several respondents. Given that the U.S. Copyright Office has ruled that AI art can’t be copyrighted, it’s a legitimate one. But this is more than just a practical consideration. It forms the crux of the dilemma around AI across creative industries and the arts at large.

Who (or what) takes credit for the end product?

How aspiring designers will respond to this question is closely linked to their perception of the role of designer. Do they view their responsibility as devising outcomes or generating outcomes? Do they see themselves as an engineer or as a creator? And is there an innate tension between the two, or can they coexist?

It boils down to the specific elements of the creative process that designers feel they need to retain control of in order to consider themselves a true ‘designer’. According to the students we spoke to, it’s not a question that requires an immediate answer. They said that as of yet, AI’s end product remains mediocre and derivative from a design perspective.

But regardless, many felt that using tools like DALL-E and ChatGPT somehow amounted to ‘cheating’. Yet they continued to do so anyway, perhaps for fear of being left behind. As AI outputs evolve and become more sophisticated, a re-evaluation of the core skills required for design work seems almost unavoidable. Will writing effective prompts become more valuable than inherent talents such as drawing, for example? We’re sure to find out.

AI ethics extend beyond design

For now at least, the role of AI in design remains to enhance human capabilities. By smoothing the creative process, AI makes it easier for human designers to realize creative potential, rather than taking the driving seat for conceptualization/ideation.

This is reflected in the students we asked only being ‘somewhat concerned’ about AI in relation to job security – it’s not viewed as an immediate or existential threat. In fact, concerns were expressed most strongly around the potential impact of AI on politics and society, rather than for design in and of itself. One respondent sums up the issues that AI must address particularly well:

“I am concerned about people, including myself, losing the ability to think actively and critically, as well as our literacy skills. Another worry is the erosion of diversity, as it perpetuates dominant thoughts by relying on data from predominant big data sources.”

Toby Whelan, UX Designer, Designit Oslo