According to Figma’s chief executive, AI degradation won’t hurt you.
Dylan Field, CEO and co-founder of Figma, said graphic designers and other creative people who use the company’s tools should find the AI era to be “the perfect time to be creative.”
He said AI models are trained based on “the distribution of data” and typically create designs that people would perceive as “average.”
Humans, on the other hand, can create things that have never been seen before, Field said on the New York Times podcast “Hard Forks.”
“If you’re in the distribution industry and you’re not really pushing the boundaries, I think you’re in an even worse situation than if you’re actually exploring the frontiers of human knowledge, creativity, and what can be put out into the world,” Field said. “And to create something fundamentally new as an expression of myself. So I’m excited about that.”
Field spoke last week at an event in San Francisco hosted by the podcast. A video of the interview was posted online Friday.
Figma has released its own AI “Vibe Design” tool that allows users to create mockups of apps and other software. It faces competition from other technology companies, including Google with Stitch and Anthropic with Claude Design.
Field said the flood of AI-generated designs, especially in the marketing field, should encourage companies to create more original work.
“Right now, the advertising industry is looking at how to prove authenticity, how to prove that you’re actually producing something that wasn’t generated by AI, and some companies are really trying to do that,” Field said. “In the design world, I think what we’re going to see, and what we’re starting to see, is more interactive, more creative, and people leveraging software as a more creative medium.”
The CEO also dismissed the idea that AI will wipe out jobs for graphic designers. Jobs will be more of a generalist rather than a specialist, he said.
“Many people who do other jobs will start calling themselves ‘designers and creators,'” Field said. “I think in general there is more of this kind of generalist vibe that people feel they have to embody.”