AI produced garbage, is (also) waste. Power is increasing exponentially. Control is lagging. Why this is great for designers?
But before, real quick: I write my pieces with my brain. (I see u Linkedin)
Users are moving from being in awe of AI power to claiming granular control. The type of control users want is proving to be harder than MANGO's thought it would be.
Sure, you can still post “wow, it did this” content, but these posts are gathering less and less interest. Audiences are getting tired of the circus, and they want to get back to the real.
This is not a post bashing AI, I'm a heavy ComfyUI user. Just look at trends right now and you will see that there is an entire vintage revolution happening right now (vinyls breaking all time sales records, 90's grunge is back).
The human brain will always contemplate and want to be in awe of it's own capabilities, that's why we stand in galleries staring at walls: "What was going on in this brain when they did it?".
I can only tell a story (website, App or a film) if I’m the storyteller. Hard to do that by babysitting a cocaine-bear storyteller.
The control race. That’s where the puck is heading.
Right now, producing anything looks more like:
-> prompt > pray > yay > iterate “ahh f*** no no no... why? Don’t do this to me”
Co-piloting with AI looks like you are unleashing a cocaine bear on a dog leash. Who’s walking who?
But what about ControlNets?
I’m a heavy ComfyUI user, so I’m deeply aware of guardrails. Consumer-facing products implementing character consistency, etc. But they are also subpar. Far from final pixel/ production ready potential.
Power is increasing exponentially. Control, is lagging.
This also means an incredible waste of resources: money -> credits -> time -> computing power.
Not long ago, people were complaining about blockchains being a waste of energy. Now, the same people burns through credits to get cats to dance. Apparently, pan-drumming cats are not an environmental menace. (Is cute where we draw the line?)
I'm deeply vested in this control race.
The good news for designers is: Effective, user-empowering, controls are UX orchestrations.