Amplifying Humanity Through AI: A Designer’s Transformation
I used to be afraid of AI. I'll admit it. When these tools first started appearing, I told everyone they were going to take my job. UX is disappearing, I said. I don't want to feed the algorithms, I said. I was so certain that technology would replace us.
But something shifted in me over the past year. Not overnight. It was gradual, like learning to see in the dark. I started with simple things. Meal planning. Social media filters. Small experiments that didn't feel threatening. Then I discovered Sora. Then Claude. Then the agentic possibilities. And something clicked.
I came to this realization through what I can only describe as a personal transformation. I went from avoiding these tools entirely to building agents, creating custom GPTs, testing AI across seven TikTok accounts, and publishing five books with their help. The shift wasn't about losing my skill. It was about amplifying it. "It's amplifying my brain," I told someone recently. "My brain thinks faster than my body can move. Now it's at the same speed. And now I can't sleep because there's so much innovation to think about."
This is what I've come to believe: AI doesn't replace humanity. It amplifies humanity in almost every way, if you use it right.
But here's the part that keeps me up at night. We need standards. Real, intentional, thoughtful standards in the design community. Because the power to amplify humanity means we also have the power to diminish it.
I've been thinking about what it means to be a designer right now. We fought for our seat at the table. For years, we fought to prove that good UX matters, that design is strategic, that human-centered thinking moves the needle. We won. And now, with AI reshaping everything, we're in these rooms where decisions are being made that will affect billions of people. We're the ones who understand the ripple effect of a single button. We know that a small interface choice, multiplied across the world, can destroy or create.
"A small button that maybe an L4 UX designer at Amazon is responsible for has ripples throughout the whole world," I said this to someone powerful recently. And they got it. But not everyone will. Not everyone does.
That's why I'm writing this book. That's why I'm having these conversations. My call to design leaders is simple: we have a voice. We need to use it. Speak up when something feels unethical. Don't wait for things to be obviously illegal to say no. Build teams with diverse voices around the table, because homogeneous thinking, no matter how smart, doesn't see what it doesn't see.
I've noticed something about the barriers that used to exist in our industry. They're falling. For decades, you needed money to learn design. You needed privilege. You needed to come from the right background, the right neighborhood, the right family. This made our rooms of people making decisions very, very samey. We had a wave of diversity efforts a couple years ago, and things started changing. Then came the backlash.
But AI is different. A fourteen-year-old in a small village in Mexico, if they have access to the right tool, can compete with every tech giant. They can learn, create, build, and ship. That possibility makes me cry sometimes. Not sad tears. Tears of possibility and responsibility. We're at the beginning of something so vast that we won't see where it leads.
The question isn't whether to use these tools. It's how to use them consciously. How to make sure the people building the future represent the people living in it. How to stay human in a world moving so fast most of us are barely holding on.
So I stopped resisting. I leaned in. I experimented. I failed. I learned. And I discovered something that shouldn't have surprised me, but did: tools are tools. They can be wielded with intention or carelessness. They can open doors or close them. They can give voice or take it away.
My responsibility as a designer hasn't changed. My tools have changed. My speed has changed. My reach has changed. But that basic call, to design for humanity, to think about the person on the other side of what I'm building, to speak up when something isn't right, that's still there. Louder now, because the stakes are higher and the possibilities are wider.
Use AI. Build with it. Amplify yourself and your teams. But stay conscious. Stay critical. Stay human.