044: Design and fear
044: Design and fear
[After - Session 14] The speed of AI implementation is a design decision with implications
The journalist Casey Newton opened my eyes last night. It was one of those, “Oh! Of course!” moments in considering all things AI.
The speed of adoration for generative tools sidesteps a critical question, which, now that I think about it, is having a huge impact on their use and perception. And this same question hints at another important debate within the AI space.
First, where’s the design?
We might be using the wrong visual metaphor for interacting with AI.
Every AI interface I’ve seen is a text entry form (see image above), looking and functioning almost exactly like every single Internet search text entry form.
If the design of a tool, i.e. its interface, its UX, is merely a text form—and we’ve got decades of global experience with the same UX, but for the act of searching—how does today’s audience know what this new tool is for, much less how to use it?
Some AI interfaces are more instructive than others (looking at you Bing Image Creator). A few offer accompanying suggestions and direction. But the general metaphor pervades across AI, and reminds me of my very first reaction to ChatGPT: “This is… search?”
I’m not sure visual austerity is helping make the case for AI.
Newton cites Amelia Wattenberger, a research engineer at Github, as his provocation. In defining why chatbots are not the future, she writes,
“Good tools make it clear how they should be used. And more importantly, how they should not be used.”
As it relates to the current state of chatbots,
“The burden to learn what works still lies with every single user. When it could instead be baked into the interface.”
Exactly.
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing you’re closer to the leading edge of the bell curve of adoption than its center mass. You’re curious. And I’m guessing you provide all kinds of grace when experiencing the new. Early adopters forgive all kinds of coding and design sins which the middle of the curve can’t.
Today’s AI chatbot UX remains sub-optimal and too mysterious to help more people comprehend, enjoy, and leverage the possibilities.
There’s a huge creative opportunity for someone to embrace. The AI interface that’s more broadly intuitive, built inside an experience which teaches versus mystifies, will attract and retain mass appeal.
Who writes AI fear mongering headlines? Humans.
Four people sent me The New York Times “Godfather of A.I.” piece within an a few hours this week. In short: a very smart person named Geoffrey Hinton is concerned. Many innuendo-laden paragraphs later I fail to see the point. As Casey Newton noted, “most of what [Hinton] says here is also said routinely [by] most people currently working for AI companies.”
Can the current crop of AI-generative tools instigate on their own? Can they grant you access to ChatGPT’s API on their own? No? No. There appear to be human requirements in the loop for now.
So the real issue isn’t AI tech, it’s the humans.
I would point everyone to Cal Newport’s substantial review of ChatGPT in The New Yorker. He brings receipts. “It’s hard to predict exactly how these large language models will end up integrated into our lives going forward, but we can be assured that they’re incapable of hatching diabolical plans, and are unlikely to undermine our economy.”
Or as creative director and agency founder PJ Pereira puts it,
“All our opinions right now are influenced by a perspective that comes mostly from sci-fi books and movies, that always depicts AI as the villain and computers as monsters that one day are going to try to try to dominate us.”
This all relates to design.
And leadership.
In the excitement to unleash AI’s potential, we seem to have skipped the “how might lots of different humans, with different life experiences and expectations use this?" part. We rushed how the code is presented, made actionable, how it’s framed.
And in our current algorithmically-charged environment, it’s no wonder many people are freaking out.
It’s time for design to come to the rescue.
This coming Monday is our final session of The Future of Advertising course at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. The students will be presenting their work for Assignment 3, and we’ll have the fabulously talented creative director David Mackereth stop by to help evaluate work and offer words of wisdom.
I’ll preview the circus on Sunday.