#72 Pablo Stanley About Being a Designer in an AI Supported Future
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Hello friends and welcome to a new podcast episode. This is the future of your ex. I'm Patricia Reiners, your host. And this time we have Pablo Stanley joining us. Most of you probably know him already. He's quite famous on social media and often seen at design conferences.

After his time as lead designer at Envision and Lyft, he founded several companies including Blush, a platform that provides illustrations, I've even bought some for my presentations, and Mushu.ai, an AI Figma plugin that creates landing pages from prompts. Pretty cool, right?

Now, I'm personally a huge fan of Pablo myself. I love his presentations where he uses mini GIFs for his slides and talks about issues in the design industry, trends and also some general tips. It's always super funny and the audience usually laughs a lot. And in our chat we covered a lot of different topics. And I can already tell you it's also a very fun and open conversation.

We talked about how to give really good presentations, how amazing VFX are and the impact of AI on industries like film and video. We also discussed the downsides of AI. So it's a very fascinating and inspiring conversation.

By the way, you can now find the videos of my interview partners of the podcast interviews on my YouTube channel. Because I know that many of you prefer watching the videos than just listening to it. So feel free to check them out. Pablo's video along with some other exciting resources and links can be found in the description box as usual. All right, so let's get started. I hope you enjoy it.

Super excited to have you. Thank you so much, Pablo, for joining the Future of UX podcast. Welcome. Welcome. Welcome. Thank you so much, Patricia. I say welcome. No, it's thank you for having me, Patricia. I'm super excited. Is that Patricia or is it Patricia? A lot of people ask that. I don't really know because I'm German and in German it's like Patricia. Yeah.

Patricia. I like a lot of Patricia. It sounds very strict, very conservative. So I think Patricia sounds the nicest, but Patricia is also okay. So I also switch between Patricia and Patricia. What about Pat? No? Pat, no? You're like, eh, too far. Not female enough. Oh, you think so? Okay, yeah. Pat. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like Patton Oswalt? No. Pat...

What about Patty? Patty sounds okay. Yeah, some friends call me Patty. Okay. But let's not make this about me. It is about me because like I want to know at what moment I can call you Patty. You can call me Patty if you want. Okay, cool. That's totally fine. So again, welcome. Super glad to have you here. I must say I'm a huge fan.

I haven't said that in our intro, but I watched you many times on stage. I loved so much. I'm a huge fan of your presentations. They're always hilarious, but very informative. So I'm super curious to dive a little bit into your career and what you're doing at the moment. So before we are diving into the topic, please do a quick introduction. Tell our listeners who you are and what you're currently doing.

Yes. So thank you, Pat and Patty. And I feel a little bit embarrassed now that you've seen some of my talks. I'm always a nerve wreck up there. But I don't seem like it.

No. Oh, yeah. I'm good at hiding it. Yeah. I'm good at. Yeah. But I do think that the stage you have done talks to. Right. And you've done you've been in camera before. I mean, we are in camera before, but that right now. But you've done courses and stuff like that. Right. And you have a YouTube channel. Yeah. So how how do you feel about like that?

black this that is on the other side that is like looking at you like just in a judgmental way like do you feel comfortable like in front of the lens in front of the camera um yes so for me I try to convince myself that the people there are waiting for my talk that they're excited to listen to me and when I say this to me like you know for several days I believe it at some point

Wow, okay. So you try to brainwash yourself. Exactly. Even if they're sleeping, they're not listening. I'm like, they are excited, right? This is the reason why they're sleeping or so. No. Yeah. I love that. I'm going to use that as a tool. Like, I don't know. I want to not think of other people as just like,

No, because if I start thinking about them, I think I start worrying more. Yeah. It's like, who's going to be there? Who's going to judge me? Oh, my God. They're going to hate it. Why am I doing this? You start like going, start going into this nerve wracking spiral. And suddenly, like, I'm just like paralyzed. So I try to not think about them. They're just like a blank state. Just like, yeah, but I'm here. I'm going to give it.

But once you're up there, it feels so good to look. But then suddenly, like when they're laughing, when you see there's a reaction, there's a positive reaction, it's just the best feeling in the world, right? Yeah. They never laugh at my talks. So this never happened. Not once, I think. I'm not that funny. But do you try to make them laugh? I mean, maybe it will be bad if you're not trying to make them laugh and suddenly they start laughing, right? Yeah.

I think I'm not so into jokes, you know? I think, like, also when I'm going to a design conference, people don't laugh that much, I feel. They laugh at your jokes because they are hilarious, but most designers are not that funny. Okay. Yeah, okay. So you're saying you hate humor, you prefer that people are straight and just, like...

No. Don't go in because... I'm kidding. I definitely don't. I think it's great, but it's also very difficult to be funny. You know, like also like stand-up comedy and all these things. This is like fascinating for me. This is like my black box that I don't understand. How people can be so funny spontaneously, come up with jokes, create this kind of humor. Also what you're doing. For me, super, super inspiring.

So what is this for you? How do you come up with the topics that you share in talks? What are the topics that you like to talk about? I mean, for the longest time, it's been just like, I found that making it personal is kind of cool. You know, it's kind of good. It's good because, well, you're talking about something that you know about and that feels close to your heart.

And also people seem to react better when there's a personal take on something. And even, and for the longest time, I, I will be a little bit too cynical about that, you know, because like, oh, come on, you're just talking about yourself. You know, you're just making this about you. And because I will see people on stage, I will hate that. But I didn't, I didn't get it. I was an idiot. Yeah.

I'm still an idiot working on it. But I will be a little bit too cynical about like, oh, you're just like showing stuff about you and you and you and yourself and not making it about the audience or about something that is going to be useful for people. Yeah.

After doing talks and trying to avoid talking about myself, I realized that actually it's not, it's never about you. It's never about yourself. It's always about them. Even when you make it about yourself, even when you talk about yourself, the people on the other side, people,

receiving that information and going through their brains, they're going to find a way to make it about themselves. Even when it's a personal story up there on stage, that personal story that might be very particular to you

they're still going to make it about themselves and find some meaning for them. So I think it works that way. And now that I've realized that, it's like, hey, I'm okay talking about myself on stage a little bit more. And you know what? Actually, I feel more comfortable because I'm the most important person in the world and I'm very interesting. So why not talk about myself? People...

Yeah, they want to know. So yeah, I'm slowly coming to realize that I'm just amazing and that people want that from me. Love that confidence. I think we all need that sometimes, right? Like from time to time, you think like, I'm amazing. People want to listen to me. And this is okay, right? If you have something to tell, something that people get value out of,

It's totally, I think it's totally fine to think that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But like not all the time. What was the last topic that you gave in a conference or in a talk? I was about AI and design. AI and design. Yeah. Okay.

And what is your take on AI and design? So I am personally very excited about AI. I see a lot of opportunities. I am self-employed, so I'm running my own business. I have my own design studio. And I am automating a lot of things with AI currently using JetGPT, Gemini's GPTs. I personally basically automated pretty much everything that I wanted to automate, that I can focus much more on the things that I enjoy.

Being creative. Doing my own research about topics. Doing interviews for my podcast. And leaving all the tedious stuff to AI. That works pretty well. So you are doing the dream of what AI should be. Like giving it the menial mundane things that you don't want to do. Or that maybe you're like...

I'm too good for that. I already know how to do that. Why doing it again when I can be focusing on this other thing that is more interesting? It sounds great because you're a solopreneur, right? You're a solo designer. Do you have an agency or something? I mean, like you're freelance or something? I'm freelancing. Sometimes I'm working with different people, so I'm very flexible and free.

And yeah, it works. But of course, I can't automate everything, right? Like I still need to do the dishes here. I need to do the cleaning. There are still things that I can automate, although I would love this to be automated. It can't. But I think like some of the things that I really hate to do, I automate it. So I am generally like very positive towards AI. But I'm also seeing, of course, like some challenges, some things that we need to be very cautious about. And

And I personally really speak to designers and say, educate about AI. Learn about AI, how to use it, how to leverage it, and also learn about the pitfalls. Because what you definitely shouldn't do is just like incorporate it in everything, but you need to have the knowledge and understand how AI works and how you can use it, basically. Yeah, you need to know how to ask for things, right? Exactly. Just like a, hey, how to...

Like the whole prompt engineering thing. Exactly. I love that now. Have you seen this, that now designers in a way, we kind of have an advantage over like coding because now coding, a lot of it is actually like how,

The new coding language is English. It's natural language. It's just like talking like a person to another person, like a human to another human, even though the other thing is not a human.

but it is a little bit like that. And then you ask it and you're clear and you ask it the right way. And then the other thing on the other side, the robots, I like to call them, the robots do their job. And the clearer you are, the better. And I've seen a lot of engineers, coders, that actually have a really hard time with this because it's the non-deterministic nature of this and the whole idea that

uh the coding part of this is it's natural language it's just like speaking english uh it and it's not like a set of formulas or of a set of commands that will give you predictable results like that can be very frustrating for some coders yeah i i don't know if you you have you seen that have you heard that kind of stuff from different people

Yes, 100%. So I'm doing a lot of workshops with agencies, companies. There are also always a lot of developers involved in these workshops. And of course, they are very concerned about the future. About how should they... Yeah, I mean, for a reason, right? But I think, personally, if they are very strategic about using AI, coding, prompting, they still have a super great advantage. Because...

Because even as a designer, you know how to prompt, you know how to code the basics with prompting. There's a huge difference between like having a professional developers who's good at prompting can do all the tedious coding stuff with AI and then build the difficult things themselves and build the strategy behind these topics. I think those people are in need for sure in the future and now as well.

So you need to make a comment.

I'm going to make a comment that is going to get me canceled on your podcast. You want to hear it? Yes. Okay, let's hear the hot take from Pablo. But like, A, I think that a lot of coders are having a hard time with this because it is like natural language. It's like talking to a person. And well, data shows that choosing a coding technique

profession and computer science, there's a lot of people who are on the spectrum. And being in the spectrum sometimes is like a talking or like in a natural way can be difficult. So maybe that's why some coders are having a hard time. See?

I'm going to get canceled for this comment. Supposedly, that's what data shows. And now I'm just speculating why some people might have a hard time. And maybe writers or speech writers or people who do service design or people who do UX copy and stuff like that will have a better chance

way of uh uh like talking to these little robots and we'll have an advantage because they they use the natural language that we all use and that these things understand okay so uh is this is it done it's like um how how cancel am i getting

I think a little bit of hate, but that's fine, I guess. That's okay. I love that you're a techno-optimist. Would you consider yourself like that? Techno-optimist? Is that how you say it? I never heard the expression, but I think we just frame it now. Techno-optimist. I think I am, yeah. Yeah, and are you... Because it seems like you're a solo designer, you're a solopreneur, but somehow...

You're a team of, I don't know, 520. It feels like that, right? Because you have the person who is going to be helping you with your copywriting, with your ads, with your, I don't know, with responding emails, with your customer service and all that stuff. Because all of that stuff, AI can help you. Suddenly, you're not just one person. You're your whole team.

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And everyone can do that, right? Like, it's not just me, everyone has the same opportunities now. And I think this is super interesting thinking a little bit about the future, like the film industry, for example, like all these amazing, like indie movie companies, basically, who have so many opportunities now, thinking about like Sora coming out at some point, right? Like,

I think a lot of opportunities, especially for smaller agencies, freelancers, smaller companies. Yeah. Which I think is pretty interesting. Yeah. I was in a demo yesterday of a company called Chather and just the

I'm investing on it. So maybe just a little note there. And they were developing this thing where it's like in real time, it's changing with a prompt, you know, and it's using like a real time. I don't remember what it's called, but it's like real time changing. You say like, make me...

I don't know, Mickey Mouse. And then you will look like Mickey Mouse, but as you're moving, you know, and it will actually capture emotions, your, your language and everything. And it's, it's like a video. Um, so, and then we're showing this as a, as a tool to be used, like on, on places like discord or even on, on, on, on calls like this, where it's like, I can just put a prompt. And it's like, Hey, make me, make me a cartoon character, you know, or make me, uh,

like a famous person, you know, and then suddenly it changes and it changes in real time. It's still, the precision of it is still not, I don't know, I was excited about that. And have you ever used these kinds of things where it's like in real time you are changing and you can see yourself turning into a different person with AI and use the problem? I think, yeah,

I think we tried it in the workshop once, but someone else prepped everything. So I just tried it and it was like, it was not working super well. It was okay. But I know what you mean. It's fascinating. I have seen these videos on TikTok or LinkedIn. Very, very fascinating to see. And yeah.

Yeah. It's interesting. It's almost like a filter, right? It's almost like a lens filter, but like a pretty advanced one, whereas like you say it what it is, right? And in a lens filter, oh, you will suddenly have ears, right? And it's actually just capturing your, in real time, like a 3D model and instead putting the ears there. But this is a totally different thing because it's just like frame by frame is generating a new thing based on the prompt. Yeah.

The thing is that I tried it and the first time I tried one of these things, I was like, hey, well, I have a beard, I have a fat face. Maybe I should choose other people with beards and fat faces. And I put Jack Galifianakis, what was his name? The actor from... Do you know who I'm talking about? Galifianakis, the actor? Actorman? Yeah.

Aquaman? No. I have no idea what you're talking about. Hold on. The guy from Between Two Ferns. The guy from...

Oh, man, I'm the worst interviewer right now. I'm the worst interviewee. You can look it up, right? Like you can like another note here somewhere. Let me open a browser. Galafanakis. Let me go. Sack. I was saying Jack. No, it's not Jack. Sack Galafanakis. You know who Sack Galafanakis is, right? Kind of looks like me. A little bit chubby beard. Anyway, I would put Sack Galafanakis and then

i would look like sack of attacks and and i thought of that because like hey it's it's kind of uh i suppose it would do a better job because i have a beard and a face uh and it did and these things usually you have uh two screens you know in real time one the video feed in real time just like this like that we're having right now and then on the side

you have the one that is being rendered, the one with the prompt, you know, and it's like you move in one and both move, but one is you and the other one is Jack Black, I said. And the thing is this, I realized that my brain really quickly like said, oh,

Like, it seems like now I'm this person. Yeah. You know, like just like that. And I think it was the real time part of it that I was seeing it and it was reacting to my emotions. And I was like, ah, opening the mouth and doing like opening my eyes. And then Zach LaFanakis on the other side will be opening his eyes and opening his mouth. So it was like suddenly my brain, like it was, it was so easy for my brain to say like, oh, now I'm this person. That's okay. Yeah.

But it was instant. It didn't have a hard time thinking, who is this? What is going on? It was just like that, instant. And the thing is this.

There was like at least the application that I was using. It was showing me both. It was showing me the real Pablo. And then the Pablo that is looks like like a famous person. And I will look at the famous person like, oh, this is really fun. And I will look to the other side to the real Pablo's like, oh, I don't like that one. So it was kind of my brain suddenly liked my Pablo.

famous person version more than my real one it was like kind of sad you know like looking at side by side oh i am not that i am this oh it was so weird that my brain instantly thought like this and i instantly felt like oh depressed that i was not that and and i suppose it's just like the fame is it's just the uh whatever this uh

I don't know, idealized version that we have on famous people and Hollywood people. So even though it was Saga Lofanakis, not the dream person for anyone. No one wants to be like him more than Brad Pitt, for example, at least a man. But it was still a famous person. And my brain kind of liked it more, you know? Yeah, I get that. I suppose like the...

So, and you know what? I have a name for this. Do you want to hear me coining this effect? Yes. Okay. A name, I'm calling it the Malkovich effect. Have you ever seen the movie Being Joe Malkovich? Yeah. Okay. So you remember like the premise of the movie is these people who find a tunnel,

into just the mind or being inside the mind or the body more than anything of Joe Markovich. Mm-hmm.

John Malkovich being a famous actor, a famous person, and even in this thing, he was a theater actor. So suddenly you found the portal that takes you inside the body of John Malkovich. And you are in there and you will see yourself in the mirror and it's not you anymore. Now you're John Malkovich. So the premise of the movie, it was that once you're taken out of his mind,

you will want to go back as soon as possible because it feels like, oh my God, that was amazing. I was not myself.

I, it was amazing to be this other famous person and you want to go back to the, it became kind of even an addiction, you know, because being this other person, you like, suddenly you had privilege. You had, you, you, you had, you were living in this other, you were a famous person. People recognize you and you've had power and you weren't your sad, lonely self.

anymore. So I feel like it is like that. The suddenly you in real time can be Joel Malkovich, you know, in that effect that you feel as soon as you see the other side, the real you, you feel that sadness that those characters felt. And I don't know, whatever it is, Spike Jonze has it right because he also directed the movie here. And we have been saying that, oh, well, open AI, even though they

They say no, but they refer to the whole experience of this thing, talking to you and you having natural conversations with it as the movie here, which is also from Spike Jonze. There's also another movie from Spike Jonze about robots, but this is a short. So we should, if you want to learn about the future of AI, we should all study movies from Spike Jonze. I think that's my theory here.

Okay, great tip. I will link all the movies in the show notes so people can check it out and just like watch some movies as some good resources. But I agree, I think sometimes it's also good to discuss these topics and think about them because what you just explained sounds so dystopian.

Yeah, yeah.

They are not, they don't know us, but we are following what they do, how they cook, what they, you know, what they do on vacation. And this is the same thing, right? Like you want to be a part of that. Although there, there is nothing in, you know, like there is no relationship, but you feel like I want to be a part of that life. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like this and small. It's weird, but, but, but something, so that was me, old Pablo, um,

who has depression in case himself, maybe that was the effect that I had. And, and, and maybe for all of those who have to take medication, maybe you shouldn't be using these tools. First talk to your psychiatrist and your psychologist before you start using these tools. Yeah. The dystopian side, right? The dystopian side, whereas like a, like,

These things that suddenly you can become any person and then that any other person will be, maybe you will like more that other person. But you know what? I think that the newer generations, younger people, because you and I, we're not in that age bracket anymore. And the newer generations, I've seen that actually they use these things, but

in a very cool way that is actually playing characters. And it's actually like, they are aware that this person is not them. They are aware and other people are,

you go into groups, into discord, into, I mean, if there was ever a version of the metaverse that is actually real is discord. That's where actually things are happening, where people are. All the, all the other promises of the metaverse, like, yeah, 3D and VR is like,

Yeah, I think it's already here on Discord. Anyway, or on games like Minecraft and Fortnite. Vlogs or something, right? Yeah. Yeah, and the thing is that I've seen kids using these tools as...

It's a way to actually turn into a character. And when they turn into a character, they, hey, they change their personality. They change their, it's not them trying to be something else. It's not them trying to fool the other person into, hey, this is a real me. No, it's I'm playing a character.

And you are also playing a character. And it's cool to play characters. It's cool to dress up. It's cool that we get to play, to have Halloween every day. And I find that super cool. That is actually the healthy way of seeing these things. Whereas like, hey, I know who I am and I get to be all these other people too. So this global change

floral world, I get to play all these roles and I get to be with other people that also love these other roles and they also get to play with me doing these things. Maybe you can quickly talk about the tool that you founded, that you created, because I think most listeners maybe don't know it, haven't tried it yet. Tell us real quick what it is, what you can do with it and why you started it. Yeah, so we started working on something called Mocho.

Musha. I always say Musha. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Musha. It's a tool for, I mean, we're trying to create the business design assistant that a designer can have. Like an AI. I call them little robots. I don't like the term AI because it's not even AI. It's kind of AI. It's machine learning. Anyway, the little robots that are there to help you. And these little robots are just like always so powerful.

down to do stuff, you know? And they're always excited and just like, yes, let's do it all. It's like, yes, Pablo, what do you want? So there's little robots, but they're also like little baby robots because they're eager to help. They're like interns, you know? And just like, yeah, let's do it. And without, interns without the cynicism. And they're down to work and to help. But also like interns, they're like,

sometimes they make mistakes and they... By the way, you should pay your interns. If you have interns, pay them. Anyway. And you have to guide them. You have to be on top of them. And you have to be like, hey, not exactly what I wanted, but let's do it this way. Okay? You have to...

to still invest time so they get better. And I think it is a little bit like that, but also like a young, eager person, people who are just starting at a job, usually when we're just starting or I can see myself as a younger designer, I wanted to do it all, you know?

Wanted to be as helpful as possible. And, and this little robots feel like that, like they they're down to help on anything. And we just built a tool that allows designers to use this little robots for, for different things.

Right now we have a Figma plugin that allows people to just create different layouts and different, we started with just landing pages, but now we are expanding to social media stuff, to like actual more like web app or mobile app designs. And most of it is just like designs that are

Leah's already exists, like templates that we have already by...

20, 24 years, I don't know how long the web exists, but that we have already made as the patterns of the web, how the web already looks and those things that we have already created and we have set as the standards. So these things are really good at using those standards, just like what a hero section layout would look like and then recreating those things

Still, with the ability for you, designer, to take that as the first step, almost like the wireframe, like a high-fidelity wireframe, then you can edit. And

I, for us, it's important that it is seen like that. It's just like we took you 60% of the way there, you know? Still, you, designer, you still have to put the extra stuff that will make this special, you know? Yeah. The robots can do, we're making them good at the things that we already are good at and we already feel even repetitive. Yeah.

And I was just like, oh, I'm going to do a signup form again. It's like all signup forms. Like we have established the patterns for what a good signup form is. We don't have to reinvent it, you know? So maybe there are some things that a person

I want the sign-up form to have a layout on the form on the left and a big image on the right. Hey, that kind of stuff can be done. And now you're more like choosing the options that already exist. It's not even the robots that invented, we invented them. You get to use those and the robot can get to fill

like what it thinks the copy should be, and then you get to refine it. So now, and as a designer, I don't have to waste a lot of time doing those things that are already established, and I can just like make in an instant three or four versions of a signup form. Yeah.

And then choose the one that will be better and then refine that one. And on the refinement, you can still use Mucho, the EAI plugin, or you can just do it yourself because you're in Figma, you know, and you can just like change the copy, either use copy and change the image and all that stuff. So that's basically how we started. Like that's a, let's serve to that 60, 70% there, the stake designers there. And then

So they get to do more, use us as a tool that allows them to just create multiple options, you know? And then, which is something that we already do, you know? We already do mood boards.

with a lot of different things. And then we get to like pick and choose, I like this and I like this other thing. And then I like this other thing. And then we make a mashup of those options. We kind of do that thing too. Like we have seen people that use our tool to create different layouts for the same thing and then pick and choose the things that they want from that thing that the little robots made to make their own. So yeah.

And now we're actually like connecting to your own templates. So maybe you are ready to sign something. So instead of letting the robot come up with something that maybe feels too generic, you know, because like we're using just standards we have already said, you already made your own really cool design. Well, let's use that as a template and actually create

regenerate and use AI to give you more options of that template or just like change the content of that template where like maybe you already put a template where it's like this is a heading, this is a subheading, this is CTA, this is an image. Like a design library basically? You can design your own library of templates you want the thing to use, you know, and then at the end you just write with a prompt. It's like if one of them was called email, email

I don't know, onboarding a campaign or something. And if you save it that way, you can just like,

save your template, write eight, make a new email onboarding that tells people about this new promotion that we have. And then it will use that template you already designed. It will not try to change that, but it will try to make new content with that thing that you've designed. You know, it's like, hey, well, now you have a new promotion. Let's do another email that you have, that you created, and then just change the copy so it

It does that. So it takes all those steps that you would have already done, manually would have done. And it's just like, it presents you with three options of the same thing, of that same template you use. And it's like, oh, okay. I like this copy. I didn't like this copy. Rechange it. Give me another option. Give me three more options of the same copy. Then it gives you, and then you get to refine it again. Sounds great. That's how I see OrgTool, like the ideal solution.

use of this tool, whereas like it's more of an iteration tool, you know, and, and, and, and this iteration can be on things that you're too tired to think about, like what a hero section is like, Hey, just give me a hero section, you know, or just give me a form and, and, and we'll do it. And then from there you get to do the details or a already made a decide, just use that aside. Don't, don't try to be too creative. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

And I'm also seeing probably like, you know, like my product managers, my project managers, like not design people in the team who have access to Figma designing with prompts. This is what I'm experiencing at the moment already. They're creating their own flows, their own designs, and they're presenting in design in team meetings. And then you as a designer, you need to be a good one to explain them,

how this could be even better, improved, or say that that's a great idea. Let's go with it, right? Like this challenges our position a lot, I feel. Well, it pushes us to do other stuff that I think is, I mean,

I think that it gives us the ability to focus on what we have thought for a long time that is important. It's like, A, UX copy is important. A, trying different things is important. It's important to just present different ideas and see what works better. These tools, and Moonshot could be used for that kind of stuff, where it's like, A, you focus on the things that

We UX product or whatever designers we have for years that we should put more time into and not so much on pushing the pixels. The thing is that I will say that I will see that I love pushing the pixels. I love that is what...

makes me think I'm valuable, that I still have value in this world, pushing those pixels. And even for the pixel pushers like me, I think that this is great because then it just gives you more of a

template. Not starting with a blank canvas, but just something that puts you in a place where you can just refine and do the weird... Spend more time on making it weird and making it special. And

And also we're working as part of Mocha too, was like, hey, let's work on a web app and something that we want to release this month, at the end of this month, hopefully for config that's happening in June 26 or something. We want to release the alpha version of Portfolio Maker for designers. And what we have found is that these, the little robots are great to give them some information. And then suddenly they're,

With that little information, they know a lot about you. And I mean, you can give them, I mean, you can even just your name. And if, I mean, you will have a huge advantage because you have a lot of content out there. You have your, you have talks, you have a YouTube, you're active on social media and stuff. So.

These LLMs actually know a lot about you already. Scary. Scary a bit, right?

I mean, scary? Well, you put your information out there. You put yourself out there. You have said, here is my data. Here's me. And now everyone could just use one of these things and know more about you. And we're seeing that this stuff... So yeah, it is a little bit scary. I'm not trying to say that it's not. But also, it's kind of our fault. We have...

We have agreed to the terms and services of these things, which I don't agree that we knew that this was going to happen when we agreed to it. But hey, damn. Anyway, what we have realized is that these things are great at telling a story about anything. And where we designers struggle a lot

at least I do, is like updating our portfolio, updating our personal pages that tell the world about what we're doing or interests or hobbies, what we've worked on, all of that stuff that is like, oh my God, where do I begin? And then once you

already are working maybe? How do you know if someone is working? They haven't updated their portfolio for years, right? Because you don't have the time to update it because you're working and it doesn't feel as necessary because like, hey, you're working, you have a job and you usually go and update your portfolio when you need a job. So, but you still feel like you should be updating it, right? And it feels actually bad that it's like, hey, if like you have a link to your portfolio and it's not updated, then it's,

And it's always that struggle that we have as in, oh man, it's like the final boss for us designers. Like the final boss in the design game, we always see the portfolios like that. That thing that,

We have to update, keep updated. We have to tell it of ourselves, which feels unnatural sometimes. At least if you were raised Catholic as me, it's that, hey, no, you don't matter. You are nothing and without guilt. So if you are born with those beliefs, then trying to make a page that actually

you're trying to boast yourself and say, I am the best. It feels unnatural. You feel bad about that. But the robots, they think you're the best. Patricia, you are the best designer. You have so much to say. And the robots just love you. They're like, yes, let's make the best page. Patricia, let's tell the world about this project, about this video that you made, about this essay that you wrote. Because in all these things that are about you, the robots,

robots are amazing at just like making the connections between all this information that for us is a scatter around. It's in a Figma file. It's in a Notion file. It's in a post that you put on social media. Like now you're thinking something new, you know, you're realizing that the robots are evil. Well, that

hey, let's grab that data and just put it in a page where it tells that story about you. And you have control over those pieces that are around there, scattered around the web or in documents or in files and present it to the world in a cohesive way in which you have control. So yeah, we're working on that and really excited. Nice. It's also just hard, like working with,

Like I was saying, the little robots are little babies and just like babies in diapers walking around the house, just like painting the walls. And you're running around them. It's like, no, don't do that. Come on over here. It feels like that where you're working with that because they just have so much energy. Always motivated. Yeah.

yeah always motivated but usually it's just like no don't do that stop it uh so so yeah we're working on that and it's like a tool that allows people uh to create their personal pages specifically portfolios where they're going with that but eventually we see the opportunity for this to use it for your person for a brand for a company for a business or something where it's like a

you build a knowledge graph in the back. You give it more information. And a lot of that information can be things that are already out there or you let it connect to your Figma file, for example, and say like, hey, this is the latest project that I just finished. And whenever you finish a project and you have your Figma file, that's the moment when you should be updating your portfolio, right? You should go out there and I mean, if you...

If they allow you, I don't know if that depends on the client, but let's say that you do have that and you have the thumbs up, the green light to update your portfolio with a project. Does the...

that should be the time we do it because it's fresh in our minds. We know what we were working on, but that's the last thing we want to do because we are done. It's like, oh man, I don't want to go out there and just like now prepare the files. It's just like, Hey, tell the story about this and reverse engineer the design process that I supposedly followed to, to, to do this when I actually, it was just a lot of, uh,

the slack threads where we made the decisions and there was no the side process it was just like ah do it like this yeah but uh now you have to go and tell a story to the world in your personal page and it just feels like again final boss i don't have time for that i don't have the motivation

But if you were to connect it to this eager robot, it's like, hey, just finish this thing. Update my portfolio with that stuff. Then it's like, oh, dude, it looks like you made this. It looks like you made this. This project looks like you're solving healthcare in the EU. Wow. Okay, cool. Let's tell the story about that. It seems like you try this and you try that. Let's tell the story about that in a case study.

And when will this go live? Sorry, when will this go live? I'm so excited for it. Yeah. So we're thinking that this should be at the end of the month. The alpha version, the really early alpha version that it just allows you to write a prompt and then it spits out a page. Exciting. Okay. You can regenerate. I would keep that in mind.

Our idea is for it to actually be something that you can still edit. I mean, we're designers. We need control. We need to collect those things and say like, oh, you silly robot. Let me rewrite that for you. Or, oh, you silly robot. You put it in the wrong way. Let me do it again. So I'm realizing that someone working with creating tools that use AI, I think it's

it's important to always have the human override. And, and I mean, like for example, do you know that? I mean, now we get into elevators, these elevators,

box of dead this metal boxes of dead that take us like a hundred floors up and then a hundred floors down and this thing that you don't know what is happening right but it usually it wasn't automatic right for the first decades their elevators existed there was a person and we still see it in the movies right where it's like a person is like what floor and they will push i

I deliver, and it seems like they will give you the confidence that someone is in control. Someone is there manually taking us to the floor that we should go. So for once that those people were not needed, and because elevators were automatic and you could just push a button and it will take you to that floor, people didn't like that.

And historically, apparently, we still like for years had to have a person there just to give the confidence for people that is like, hey, what's going on? Like just pushing the button when you're used to having someone that is actually controlling this thing and give you that confidence. We still needed that. And then suddenly people were OK not needing that person there. So it was more of a person that was there just to give assurance to the passengers of the

box, metal box of that. And the same is happening with autonomous cars, right? Where it's like, hey, they don't need a steering wheel if we are saying this can drive themselves. But you as a passenger, at least the appearance that you can override what the robot is doing, it gives you that confidence like, okay, at any moment I can jump and just try to

say stop, you know, or just push the panic button. And I'm realizing that building these tools, there should always be that thing. There should always be that person that is there to give you control of the elevator that gives you that assurance. There's always that human override over these AI tools. And like, even if the AI can do a lot of stuff,

And with time, it will get so good, they will just get it right on the first time. But while we get there, and also just while we humans start accepting that these things can do their job, and we start giving them the agency to do more things, then we're going to need the steering wheel a little bit less. We're going to need the manual override a little bit less. But for now, it

we were originally doing everything with AI and it just felt so bad. Just like, no, I want to edit stuff. I want to like remove stuff. I am a designer. God damn it. You know, I need control. So yeah, we're keeping, I don't know, just a snippet of behind the scenes. So like how it feels to work, building tools with these things and like thinking of the user on the other side. Yeah.

Yeah, I think super, super interesting. Thanks for sharing that so openly. I think this is... And I'm really happy that you emphasized that because...

even for people who are using AI, if you are just like a user, a designer using Mooshu, ChatGPT, whatever, it's so important to have that oversight of the outcome. Never just copy and paste it. You always need to iterate. There is nothing that's like 100% perfect. You always need to iterate. You need to fact check. And this is what a lot of people, I think, get a little bit wrong. They think like, just copy and paste it. Now it's done, you know, like easy. But no, definitely not. It's not there yet. And

It might never get there, yet you can just throw something in a black box and get something out and it's perfect. There needs to be someone who's in control and also understands the process, who understands what's going on, what the AI is doing, what's the result, what's the desired outcome, all these kind of things. And yeah, same for building a product with AI. Super interesting. So Pablo, do you have any last tips for our listeners?

They're all designers. They're all excited about the future. Any tips that you can give them to prepare for what's ahead of us? I think, hey, we... I mean, if there's something that I would tell people, it's just like be on top of stuff, you know? Yeah. And be...

keep yourself updated yeah also don't don't lose hope it's really easy to just like see the things that these robots and read all the twitter threads and all the videos just like uh ux designers rest in peace it's like like all that stuff is dumb and it's it's also just like it's not true and it's uh it's made for you to to feel that fear and for you to

to make you engage with that fear that you might feel when you read those things and with that. So don't look at all those things in a skeptical way. And I'm telling you, as someone who uses these things to create tools, I can tell you they're not that good yet.

And so we still have, I mean, as designers, we still, our professions are still safe for like the next two weeks. So, yeah. Okay, great. Awesome. Two weeks. Okay, that's enough to finish my career. Don't lose hope. Yeah.

We will adapt. Things are changing really quickly. And so it might feel overwhelming. And if I might feel like, oh, well, why even study or why even try if the robots are going to do it all? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, no. See it as more as an opportunity. I know it's hard sometimes. I feel it that way. I feel the whole, wow, wow.

what are we doing? We're going to be irrelevant. Sometimes I feel like that. And not just designers, I feel like relevance is human. It's like these things are just like making music, writing poetry, what is happening? But I then, again, I'm like, oh, I'm a victim of the fear, I'm a victim of this, I don't know, hyped

thing that is happening and it's like trying to get into my nerves and no, I should see the opportunities of this. And I invite everyone to not lose hope and see the opportunities on this thing. And I, if anything, I see a renaissance of,

human stuff coming, you know, like more and more people, what you were saying about the copy pasting is so real that we have gotten really good now at detecting what is AI and what is it? You know, if someone writes an email to us, an answer of an email, now we know if it was streaming with AI or not, you know, and we see an image and stuff. I think we, we have,

we have in the last year, I think, detected the filter for BS on that too. So I think that there's going to be also a need for more human stuff, 100% organic designs, 100% organic art, human made. I think that there's going to be a renaissance of that and it's going to be a need for that stuff.

And so, hey, it's just like, don't feel the pressure of the hype as much. But yeah, like, hey, play with these things. They're fun. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I think amazing last words. Be like Patricia, like become a team of 20, you know, from one person, then you can become a team of 20 with all the things these little robots can help you do, right?

And just like play around with it. This is what I really enjoy. Just like play around with it. And then you will also find like the problems, the pitfalls, the things that are not working because you also, and you mentioned that several times, you also need to be cautious with these tools, with personal information, with data, and you need to educate your design team, your clients, and really speak up because if you don't, then other departments will do that, right? So if

If you don't play around with it, if you don't know how AI works, how to use it, how to leverage it, other people will do it. And probably not for the users in the end. Others are going to make the decisions. Yeah, exactly. And we don't want that. So, designers, I hope you're all inspired. Do your job. Do your job and maybe play a little bit around with Mushu AI. I will link it in the description box so you can all check it out. And also with the new portfolio tool, excited for it. So, Pablo, keep me updated.

Super excited to try it out. Thank you so much, Patricia. Thanks for doing this. This is so fun. Yeah, it's fun. Well, it was fun that you just allowed me to just talk and talk, you know, and just like you were just like,

Okay, do your thing, Pablo. You're just full of yourself. Be the egomaniac attention seeker that I am. Thank you for allowing me to do that. I think you're not like that. I think you're just thinking while you're talking, right? Like coming up with ideas. You're just like, I think like typical creatives. A lot of creatives, you know, they're coming up with ideas while they're talking and then like their brains are starting, you know, to...

I don't know, come up with something, ideas, concepts. I think that's a good thing. Thank you, Patricia. You did very well. Thank you, Patty. And now I can call you Patty? Yeah, you can. It's so funny when I told you about my semester abroad in Mexico and there like everyone called me Patty. So it's like a different thing in Mexico, obviously.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Patty. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That would be the way to call you. Yeah. Thank you, Patty. Anyway, Pavlos, thank you so much for being in the podcast, sharing your wisdom with all of us. I'm looking forward to see what you're coming up in the future. And thanks to our listeners. Thank you so much for listening and hear you all in the future. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Gracias.