AI as we know is changing the way many of us work, across all sectors. As a freelance web designer, I’ve felt its impact no doubt. What started off as a curious dabble has now gone into transforming the scale of the solutions I can offer clients. Arming me with a greater ability to solve a problem I previously may not have had specific experience in.
Like any tools, there are pros and cons.
Working by and large on my own, I’ve found AI to be very useful in offering an opinion on something I might not otherwise get from my peers, family or friends around me. It’s one thing me having an idea of a solution to a project, but that might not always be the best way of solving. AI has my back by and large, and offers good suggestions.
In terms of generating actual code, it’s a game changer. Being more of a design led web designer/developer, sometime I’m happy to admit, coding or extending functionality to a piece is not always second nature. AI gives me that big leg up to get the donkey work of it done, with just fine tuning and application by me.
This of course isn’t writing a whole website for me or doing my job for me (yet!) – but more writing a small function to perform X task.
Before this, I’d be resigned to searching through Google or Stack Overflow for people who have already come across my problem and solved.
Downsides? It may become easy to be over reliant on what it produces, whilst losing a grip on why it’s produced it and how it works. Just copy and paste and off we go! Further ahead, of course it might be that AI does the whole thing and I’m no longer needed! But that may be some time off yet.
