The End of Creative Jobs? An Interview on AI’s Impact on Design and Dev

Designers and developers are creative professionals. Their jobs aren't just coding and Figma designs - they understand the human brain, behavioural patterns, and they have intrinsic knowledge of what to place on a website and where. It's a human-to-human matter.

Then arrived AI. Tools that let you create a website in seconds. And they divided these professionals into two groups.

Those designers and developers who refuse to use AI to save time and boost productivity. As a result, their potential clients, especially small business owners, are using AI tools to directly, without onboarding or hiring them, create websites for themselves.

Those web designers and developers who are using AI tools to do the creative part, and are reserving their own skills for monitoring and implementation. They are digging their own grave.

The former isn't using AI at all, the latter is using it to its disadvantage. Such dogmas raise the question:

Is it worth using AI?

Is AI the death of creativity?

And can it hold a candle to the emotional intelligence and strategic thinking of human web designers and developers?

I talked to Jay, a UI/UX expert with deep expertise on AI's true influence, and asked him whether or not it will take over human jobs, and what it may mean for human creativity in design and development in the long run.

Meet the UI/UX Expert: Jay Harrison

Jay Harrison, an expert UI/UX professional at Global Bay, regularly publishes articles and insights on website users’ behaviour and the emerging AI technologies that affect the creative responsibilities of designers and developers.

Q&A With Jay Harrison

What Is Your Biggest Concern Re: The Use of AI in Web Designs?

I think that AI is being used in a non-ethical way. That is my biggest concern. When I first heard about AI, I wanted it to do the tasks that I hated to do, such as create spreadsheets, so that I could save time for activities that I loved, such as creative designing.

However, web design clients are firing humans and letting AI take over the creative part, which will ultimately dehumanise their websites.

Is AI Really Going to Take Our Jobs?

What makes you think so?

Do you know that the overall employment of web developers and designers is projected to grow 16% by 2032 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics)? Yes, even with AI being everywhere from copywriting to codewriting, no one can replace humans.

As a modern, up-to-date web designer, you have to use AI to your advantage. But if you are going to be stiff and old-fashioned, AI will definitely take over your job. No one wants to hire a professional who does half the work for double the charge.

Has Such a Threat to Human-Based Jobs Happened in the Past?

Do you know that, even before AI tools like Framer, Alpha Page, Zip WP, and ChatGPT arrived, Squarespace and Wix were capable of building websites? It took work from many designers, as clients thought that they could create the websites themselves.

The same is the case with AI. But at the end of the day, these clients come full circle and ask the same designers to handle their AI tools or to fix bugs and problems created by the software.

However, I do fear that junior developers and those who were assigned small coding tasks will be replaced by AI. But as long as they are learning, upskilling, and using their creative minds, robots can never replace them.

Then Why Do Web Designers and Developers Fear AI at All?

Not to toot my own horn, but I don't know how AI can replace me as a UI/UX expert. I mean, it doesn't produce custom solutions, it cannot generate unique UI’s. Even with creative prompts, it will only generate a design that is a mixture of 1000s of other HTML themes on Envato.

AI doesn't have a brain. I do. But AI is a machine, and I must learn how to yield it to my advantage.

Can AI Create Web Designs as Well as Human Designers Can?

There is a certain je ne sais quoi about human creativity that AI can never replace.

In a world where almost all AI web designs look the same, yours will always shine as a product of the human brain.

But AI is very useful at the start of the designing phase. Use it to throw ideas at you, which can help you save time, and then build elements and refine and improve them as per your creativity and judgement.

Can AI Create Code as Good as Human Developers Do?

AI is moving at an alarming rate. But human developers are still outdoing it. Every day, I see a new person devising solutions to use AI to their advantage. No one is surrendering to this machinery.

ChatGPT can create code. But can it understand that the user will not convert on the homepage? Does it know that your audience cares about the pricing first and then the benefits of the services you provide, later?

So let AI do the coding part, but keep the creativity reins in your own hands because no one understands the web audience better than human developers.

AI’s Effect on Web Design and Development Agencies?

The only downsizing happening in such agencies is reducing people who refuse to equip themselves with AI.

In fact, now is the time to upsell your services and grab more clients. Tell them that you can also handle the content, SEO, and graphics if the client can not provide this material on their own, and then use AI to do this part so that you can focus on the web design and development part.

Is This the End of Creative Jobs?

Like I said before, no, it isn't.

People can go ahead and create websites with AI and keep designers out of the loop. But once difficulty arises, they come back to these same people because they didn't know how to handle the theme or WP architecture in the first place. Plus, AI cannot understand human nature and emotions. Tools are cheaper than services, but they can never fill the place of human expertise.

I genuinely believe that AI will continue to shape the way we create websites and run businesses. If anything, it will become even more sophisticated, he said.

I hope you found answers to your questions, but I'm curious too. Are you using any AI tools, are you accepting AI, or have you ever felt threatened by the efficiency of these tools? And, if you are a business owner, how many times have you had a client tell you that “ChatGPT could have created this website quicker than you did?”

There is a comment section coming up. Feel free to express your opinions below. I would love to hear your thoughts. Have a great day, and I will see you soon!