Member-only story
The Human-AI replacement timeline
When will AI replace us and how?
This is a thought experiment based on my own analysis of what directions AI adoption is taking, so treat it as my own, personal predictions only, not stating of a fact.
The great replacement
AI will eventually take over both design and development. Let’s get this part out of the way and stop patting ourselves on the back saying that it’s impossible.
It will happen because the job itself has become more and more commoditized and templatized. Next to that we have growing AI skills in reasoning and multi-level reasoning.
AI now goes beyond simple “one screen” tasks and can actually assemble basic flows and measure their effectiveness. And it is getting better every week!
Sure, the current level is slightly below a smart junior designer, but we shouldn’t underestimate how fast it becomes better. It’s like the difference between GPT 3.5 and GPT 4.0.
We are at the very early stages, when some companies are using SOME ai for design, and a little bit more AI for development work.
For now the difference between the potential paths is negligible — too small to predict when they’re shoot further apart.
That’s why the X axis here is invisible — we just don’t know if it’s weeks, months or years. Likely somewhere in the middle.
Right now people are not getting fired because of AI. They are getting fired (over 200K people got laid off last year in the US alone) for a lot of other reasons like downsizing and leaner business approaches.
The fearful moment
Most people fear one specific moment — like a release of some UI generating AI (that’s more than just a prompt for an UI kit).
It’s presented in the unlikely graph above.
