Sorry folks, but AI isn’t ‘just a tool’

In the handful of years since generative AI became both a zeitgeist technology and common dinner table conversation topic, people across the design industries—ranging from independent graphic designers to tech executives—have landed on a curious mantra to justify its use: it’s just a tool. 

In this very publication, in 2023, designers Caspar Lam and Yujune Park, wrote that “if we see a designer’s role as communicating and connecting ideas to humans in meaningful ways, AI image-generation...