That AI slop can't hurt you, according to Figma's top executive.
Figma CEO and cofounder Dylan Field said creative people — like the graphic designers who use his company's tools — should find the AI era "a great time to be creative."
AI models, he said, are trained on the "distribution of data" and typically create designs that people recognize as "average."
Humans, on the other hand, can make something that hasn't been seen before, Field told The New York Times' "Hard Fork" podcast.
"If you're in distribution, and you're not actually pushing the bounds, I think that you're in a worse shape than if you're actually going and exploring the frontier of human knowledge, creativity, and what you can put out in the world," Field said. "And making something that's fundamentally new as an expression of yourself. So I get excited about that."
Field made the remarks at a San Francisco event hosted by the podcast last week. A video of the interview was posted online on Friday.
Figma has released its own AI "vibe design" tools that allow users to mock up apps and other software. It's faced competition from other tech companies, like Google, which has Stitch, and Anthropic, which has Claude Design.
Field said that the flood of AI-generated designs in marketing, in particular, should be pushing companies to make work that's more original.
"In advertising now, we're seeing ways to prove authenticity, to prove that you are actually making something that is not generated by AI, and some companies are really going for that," Field said. "In the world of design, I think that what we're going to see and what we are starting to see is a lot more interactivity, a lot more creativity, people really making software more of a creative medium."
The CEO also waved away the notion that AI would create a job apocalypse for graphic designers. Jobs will become more generalist rather than specialized, he said.
"A lot of people that are doing other jobs, I think, will start calling themselves 'designers-creatives," Field said. "I think in general, we're seeing more of this kind of generalist vibe that people are feeling like they have to embody."
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Jacob Shamsian is a correspondent on Business Insider's Enterprise news desk. He is a member of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network.He was previously on BI's Legal Affairs desk, covering major litigation, courtroom trials, and the legal industry.Jacob has reported on the criminal trials of Donald Trump, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sam Bankman-Fried, Sean "Diddy" Combs, R. Kelly, and Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), He's also covered blockbuster civil trials, including both E. Jean Carroll v. Trump trials, the New York Attorney General's fraud trial against Trump, Sarah Palin v. The New York Times, and Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard.His stories have been cited in judicial rulings, lawsuits, letters from congressional committees, and in numerous media publications. He was a pool reporter in Donald Trump's Manhattan criminal trial.Jacob has been interviewed on CNN, the docuseries "Surviving R. Kelly," ABC's "Good Morning America," and BBC News, among other programs. His work has been cited by media outlets, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, and New York magazine. He's also written for GQ, The Awl, The New Republic, Entertainment Weekly, Time, and Modern Farmer.You can reach Jacob on Signal at JacobShamsian.07.Expertise:Manhattan District Attorney and New York Attorney General Trump Organization investigations, 2020 election lawsuits, Dominion and Smartmatic, Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Sean "Diddy" Combs, Sam Bankman-Fried, Anna Sorokin (AKA Anna Delvey), R. Kelly, January 6 criminal cases, Britney Spears conservatorship.Features and scoops:Inside Jeffrey Epstein's plan to nab another billionaire clientLuigi Mangione came from privilege. Then his spine gave out, he went off the grid, and he got a gun.Why The New York Times' lawyers are inspecting OpenAI's code in a secretive roomWhen the crowd leaves Trump's hush-money trial, the judge spends his day in a very different kind of courtThe newly unsealed Jeffrey Epstein documents have Donald Trump's name all over them. He had been secretly disguised as 'Doe 174.'FTX's victims may get all their money back. The judge sentencing Sam Bankman-Fried might not care.Trump's 'multitasking' defense is falling apart in courtI fled an extremist Jewish cult in Guatemala when I was 15 years old. I grew up with virtually no education and wasn't allowed to show love to my parents.The Anna Delvey Industrial Complex — and meSteve Bannon filmed Jeffrey Epstein for 15 hours. His 'documentary' has never surfaced.Fake letters and sex tapes: How R. Kelly tried to discredit and compromise his accusersWill Dominion end up owning MyPillow if it wins a $1.3 billion defamation lawsuit against Mike Lindell? Here are 2 ways it could take control.
