Grief strips life down, removing noise and revealing a clearer sense of what matters, increasing appreciation for people and past regrets. AI has produced a comparable upheaval in design, destabilizing familiar practices and signaling that the previous industry framework will not return. AI can generate outputs, mimic styles, assemble patterns, and simulate decisions, but it cannot create meaning rooted in memory, context, and emotion. Designers must transform the flood of machine-made material into experiences that resonate with human lives, injecting life where machines supply only form. The future of design centers on creating human-centered meaning, not competing with AI.
When my father died a few years ago, it changed me. We had a complicated relationship, but as adults, we did our best to mend the past and spend time forming a better relationship. After he passed, I held onto the good memories, but I also regretted the things we never got the chance to do while he was alive. That's how grief works - it strips life down. The noise fades, and what remains is a clearer sense of what actually matters.
But it can't create meaning. Meaning is rooted in memory, context, and emotion. Machines don't live, so they can't feel the depths of being. That's why our role as designers is more important than ever. The future of design isn't about competing with AI - it's about doing the one thing AI cannot. Our work will be to take the flood of machine-made material and shape it into something that resonates with human experience. To inject life where the machine only provides form.
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