Witnessing AI-induced UX maturity regression is profoundly sad.
I sit here in this meeting and I feel a profound sadness watching the AI-brainrot progress.
I got into UX because I care about people. I design because I care about my mastery in the craft.
We by no means had a mature UX team, but our few people cared deeply. We worked to build systems and artifacts, create collaboratively, and understand our users.
Now we are an AI-first company, complete with AI-hopeful layoffs that left only me behind. I’ve been given the instruction to do the work of 3 people with no salary change and 90% shorter deadlines.
These days I talk to Claude instead of leading creative jam sessions with colleagues. 4 wireframes used 10% of my weekly AI usage allocation and the lack of humans makes for such a lonely workday.
Leadership asks me to deliver fast, but they don’t know what they want delivered. They ask Claude what to deliver and then spew tech nonsense. The work is aimless and lacks meaning.
What we do ship is unusable. When users say it is unusable, leadership trash-talks the users for being too stupid to appreciate the greatness of what Claude created. It becomes increasingly difficult to educate anyone on the importance of UX because the narcissism is rampant. I am not permitted to speak directly with users.
I can feel my depression lingering on the periphery as I try to escape this hell.
Hugs to you all in the UX field dealing with something similar. I know I am not alone. We will be bonded by this atrocious moment in time and look back on it from better days ahead.