AI is becoming more and more integrated into the daily workflow of designers. And let's be real - it's actually super helpful. 

I've been leveraging GPT for setting up documentation structures, expanding on ideas, and iterating on copy. 

I have also encouraged my team to use it as much as possible, so they can spend more tasks on higher priority tasks.

But this new technology raises quite a few questions about its impact on the future of design. Personally, I believe AI can give designers a huge advantage, but also a major disadvantage in the long run.

We have to understand how it works, to know what we’re dealing with.

According to Larry's video on how ​ChatGPT works in the background​, he talks about how our prompts are turned into strings of numbers, which are then used to interpret what 'vector' (a data structure for AI) it is associated with.

As you can see in the screenshot below, the huge jumble of numbers represents to the word 'hotdog' ... within the matrix.

What a Hotdog looks like in the Matrix.

This is how AI tries to 'understand' what we're saying.

So when the AI replies, it's actually calculating the highest probable string of numbers that would make sequential and contextual sense. 

It's pretty mathematical and way more complex than this explanation. But if you roll with this idea, you might realise this generally would lead to a similar outcome if utilised over and over again.

The point is, we're all starting to use AI for low level, mundane tasks. But if AI becomes more popular and specifically if the same LLMs are used, there may come a time when we eventually depend on AI to create similar experiences for all the products and services we use today.

That could mean we start having the exact same experiences with everything we buy or use, since it's all made with the same AI models. Crazy, right?

Is this a good or bad thing for us?

Time can only tell.

We're still so early in the game, and no one knows what the future holds. AI could lead to more efficient and consistent experiences for consumers and boost productivity for several daily tasks. But it could also lead to a lack of diversity and innovation in the experiences that are created.