Beat AI with your UX superpower
How to stand out when the bots are coming for our jobs
Almost every day, headlines scream of a workforce apocalypse: AI is coming for our jobs! Everyone, regardless of skill, ideas or experience, is expendable, because AI can do it all.
You know it’s crazy. I know it’s crazy. Chances are, your employer knows it’s crazy, but there are steps you can take to protect yourself, should the robots come for you, too.
1. Don’t panic
It’s easy to lose sleep, especially if someone is trying to put the wind up you: better work hard and play nice, or you’ll be replaced!
Whether you’re new to UX or a veteran, chances are you bring skills, ideas and experiences that far outstrip anything that AI can do. I’ve seen text generated by ChatGPT and art by MidJourney, and — despite the extra work those promoting it put into refining it — the result is instantly recogniseable, derivative, flawed, and ethically questionable.
You can do better than that.
2. It’s trained on the internet and the internet is full of idiots
There’s a wonderful saying: the average intelligence of a room full of people defaults to the lowest IQ in it.
At least 99% of all content on the internet is completely devoid of value. Vapid blog posts. Witless rants. Vacuous algorithm-pleasers.
How many times have you read a corporate blog post and thought, “I’ve learned absolutely nothing from reading that?”
The bots are bringing the average of that.
3. Focus on being exceptional
Right now, you’re competing against a very low bar, but it’s a great moment to distinguish yourself. Learn continuously, and focus on output that is not just ‘good enough’, but so good that it attracts attention.
You want to be well known, not only within your company, but outside it, too. You are the voice of reason and experience. You are the well of ideas. You have the deepest insights and the most polished output.
You are prized and valued inside your company — but, beyond that, there’s a queue of people outside that would snap you up in an instant! You need to be a team player, sure, but your personal brand should always exceed your current context.
4. Focus deeply on users
This is fourth on the list, but foremost in your mind: you have the deepest, truest, clearest insights because you are closest to actual, human users.
The bots can only pretend to have ideas because they are generating a fiction based on the sum of garbage. Your own alternative is the demonstrated facts of user needs — and without needs, there is no customer.
My own obsession is personas: I co-create a proto-persona with the team and then test it through interviews. This gives a clear, vivid and, above all, accurate impression of user needs.
All AI can do is pretend to do that. It can’t interview customers and draw out their hidden needs. It will, in essence, lie.
5. Find your unique voice
Chances are you have many unexpressed ideas. You might be talked over in meetings, or you might see other people take your spot when it’s time to share your thoughts or celebrate your successes. You might just not have many opportunities to show your true capability.
No matter. The internet provides many platforms to demonstrate your vision.
Show, don’t tell.
Build the thing, and show them. Draw the thing, and show them. Write the thing, and show them.
There’s value in side-hustles and side projects, or having a striking portfolio on your own website. Build a reputation on a platform, whether that’s Behance or LinkedIn.
In conclusion, find your superpower
Find your superpower, whether that’s drawing, painting, writing, building or making. Find the essence of you that you can ring out in a loud, clear voice that cannot be silenced and can not ever be replaced.
When I was eleven, my letters were regularly published in magazines; by eighteen, I was a freelance copywriter. Even as a UXer, my ability to articulate ideas in writing makes me exceptional: a former colleague told me that everyone who can read and write well in English has a superpower: when you add UX skills on top of that, you have a rare and valuable combination. You, too, have strange combinations of skills.
Only you are you, and others (even bots) can only ever be a pale imitation of you.
You are unique, and that, ultimately, is your superpower.
