As if designers spend most of their time actually "designing". Same flaw of thinking with programmers and AI replacing their jobs. As if the main problem (and a major time waster) is actually programming and not dealing with a million of other things.
But AI is replacing programmer jobs. AI is taking on a part of those 'million other things' as well, and if you can shrink your organization due to AI use, many of those other things just go away.
I don’t know a single engineer that has been terminated and replaced with AI. I know lots of engineers that were terminated due to shifting jobs offshore for cost savings, over hiring during COVID, and a poor economy.
The job of the programmer/Designer will be to answer questions about what the program can do/not do and tweak it outside of Claude's abilities. To be able to answer those questions (like: can we do this ? will it fail under pressure ? etc) requires a deep understanding of the programs which you only have if you actually build them (with or without AI).
So, less jobs for sure, but not like 50% less jobs.
...assuming all design needs are currently being met. Countless companies would benefit greatly from hiring a designer but haven't been able to, because the cost has been too high relative to the gain. If design becomes cheaper and faster, those companies enter the market — so lower cost per project doesn't necessarily mean fewer designers overall.
Except there is getting around that simple math. Did you consider Jevons paradox? If design becomes more efficient, it will be used in more cases, and in return there will be more demand!
If every designer takes less time to do their job, you need less designers. There’s no getting around that simple math.