The average Joe with a loaded toolbox: What’s next for the “Professionals”?

Booking a family vacation, generating videos with sentences that don’t even make a paragraph and removing obstacles in life using AI is pretty convenient then why is it I keep going back to figure out.. What’s my loss here.. or broadly our loss?

If I can write, I shall create

Some of us may use it only to generate placeholder images, while others might ask AI for a starting point. Some might use it for research and others for finalizing a presentation. There’s a whole segment of creators building product pipelines start to finish using nothing but a combination of AI tools.

Similarly our users in their own professional and personal lives, especially for the mundane things are using similar tools. Heck I’ve seen random animated political memes being created by an average Joe, which in another life time would take a life time to create.

The changing paradigms? Soulful?

The popularity of ChatGPT has got people searching with it rather than Google or Bing (Yahoo..? :-P) and no surprises there. Convenience trumps everything else, when a chat can give you directions to cook your favourite meal with minimal fuss, why wouldn’t it be adopted.

Now theres a question in there I suppose but I am not totally sure what that is. Is it that it feels more personal? Or that there’s more than just basic details? Or that it’s more contextual drawing on the vast library of personal information it has gathered about the user?

I think it’s a mix of everything plus more.

There’s a professional angle in there and one of empowerment as well.

One could very well argue what value a professional will bring to the table when a few prompts to a chatbot could yield results (better or worse is subjective). You can think, design, build, execute then recreate all over and everything in between but does it have a soul, a purpose beyond just creation on command?

Does it truly help another human, does it have the emotion backing that connects your product to another human being? Convenience truly trumps everything else but it takes away the emotion and connection that a human being can have to a product.

No problem but no feeling either.

Try asking your AI gal pal to book a family vacation, help it with some rudimentary details: the dates, the budget, the destination and number of people.. Voila! seconds later you have the flight booked, No huss, no fuss. No back and no forth..

Great! What did I lose here.. I mean very helpful to be frank, but now there’s no huss and fuss. Wasn’t that supposed to be an integral part of family vacation planning? The late night research, debating the sight seeing spots, figuring out schedules, places to avoid.. I mean it wasn’t really about getting it done fast, but planning it together with loved ones. That’s where the trip really starts isn’t?

AI has given the user efficiency but taken the fun out of it. It stole what would otherwise would have been a memory for me.

The Creators

Then there’s tools like Google Studio, Midjourney, Runway, Luma AI, Veed (and more) that have made it easier to create rich content, in the hands of an average user these are very powerful tools. Productions that once required professionals long hours now take a few seconds and the right mix of words.

Users now have a new medium of telling their stories, explaining complex ideas or just mixing things up for fun.

Your wish is my command, Master!
No pesky limitation of 3 applies.

The same holds true for User Interfaces and experiences. It’s moving towards an interface that lacks a visual body. Your wish is my command is the mantra here. Soon we’ll see a lot of interfaces follow in those foot steps. We’ve already seen this implemented with customer support applications already (as annoying as it can be).

I’m not saying there will be no interfaces for humans to use at all, I’m saying they’ll end up being more uniformed than they already are and less (in your face) obvious at least for the mass populous, for mass usage.

To the future

We’ve seen articles on articles telling professional their craft is dead, is it really? Are humans not in control any more? Ok – Let’s accept that premise for a minute. Then whats the job of the professional now? Are we just moving towards writing better now? We’re all training on writing better for a machine that does not understand emotion like a human would? No, thats not it.

This means there’s a lot of adaptability that needs to be discussed, to figure out what changes in our work pipelines and how fast. There will always be the craft. The method and tool might change, which is ok, I believe.

Long before Figma was popular, there was Adobe with it’s creative suite and other tools. There was a time all of it was done by hand. Long into the lifespan of AI there will still be interfaces in different structures and forms. It’s just that we’ve got to get out of the shells and experiment more. Be more of an advocate of change than to be stagnant.

Remember: Change is the only constant. You stop growing without change. At the same time do not forget the craft is still uniquely ours. It’s the human ability to infuse emotion with logic and have fun while doing so.

Thank you for bearing with my kind of a rabbit hole thought.