There are a bunch of words, quotes, and technical terms that I learn every day in a post, article or somewhere else. Words that seem to become the new industry jargon, words that are re-hashed for AI, and words that are often being accompanied as ‘this [word] is the new truth’.
Below is my collection of those words…
Upskill
Upskill seems to be a word everywhere. Articles are referring to it with a certain haste and also some ‘try to follow me’. It often feels like “you’re running behind, everyone is overtaking you” – YOU HAVE TO UPSKILL NOW!
While it is true, and ‘upskilling’ is needed for anything you want to learn, I do prefer something more motivating and enticing on what you already know and are. To me it feels more like running behind rather than running on what you already have.
S-REF
S-REF stands for Style Reference, a method to apply an existing style to a new image. The only reason why I place this word in this article is because it is was mentioned to me as the BIG GAME CHANGER. This is not the first words that I heard with this reference, and while I do understand it is a great step forward, it is simply overwhelming to keep track where to place your bet on.
Words that describe how people behave, control, oversee AI
One of my biggest reasons to be in this field, is trying to make sense from a senior design leadership position what AI is in relation to creativity and designers. In many articles I read, I come across definitions of what we should be or should add. Here are some words, not in order:
- Critical thinker
- Curious thinker
- Sense (maker)
- Fingerspitzengefuhler
- Identifiers of … (.whatever others, mostly AI tools, do not see, feel or touch)
- Mental modeler
- Judge (Judgment of the input and output)
- Navigator
- Design engineer
- Super ICs (Individual Contributors)
- Soul provider
- Decision maker
There is also one that I came up with: “Thinker outside the tool”. Similar to the popular phrase ‘thinking outside the box’. My stance is that the tools and technology are dominating the public discussions and I would like us to critically think, yet stay curious, about why we create.
Mono culture
This was the main thing I noticed when we had a presentation about Figma Make (the AI design solution from Figma): while it says designers can now explore more, it looked far more moving further on a single path you keep exploring further and further.
What I see is; you start with something, you fine tune, you prompt, you improve it some more, but you stay pretty much on the path you’re on. Convergence is key as AI is limited in coming up with something new. It combines a lot of homogeneous or dominant knowledge into a data model, pushing it towards monotonous solutions and self biasing it even more when learning from it.
Mono culture also is sometimes explained as being ‘soulless’, as described in this article. where it describes AI only delivered cliches.
AI apocalypse
A term to phrase the tsunami of AI developments coming our way, spiraling out of control and devouring us ‘simple’ human beings. “Stop AI or we are all gonna die”, and more of those catch phrases.
While I believe that there is definitely a lot coming our way, and we simply can’t keep up. I’m doubting if it will overtake us. Please read this excellent article about building a shared consciousness and a new culture by Zak El Fassi, stating what I believe in. AI will (dramatically?) change our culture, but not overtake it.
You don’t know what you don’t know
This statement always have been mind-boggling to me, including the other 3 variants like ‘Knowing what you don’t know”. But this one clearly describes the current trend in AI:
As Marty Cagan puts it in this article about people that “they are not yet aware of what they don’t know”. It nicely describes the state we are in and why everyone has a point and is selling BS all at once.
Intelligence Amplification
This one was taken from this article: We’re accidentally building a collective intelligence amplification loop. Each human-AI collaboration creates outputs that make the next collaboration more sophisticated.
I like the term IA (Intelligence Amplification) more than AI (Artificial Intelligence) , as it is HUMAN FIRST. The AI amplifies OUR intelligence, sound better to me!
AI won’t replace people. But people who harness AI will replace those who don’t
I have heard this quote, by Ginni Rometty, Former CEO of IBM, over and over again. I hate it..
It comes across as a phishing mail with an urgency that unsettles a lot of good, decent humans. It might be true that quite a lot of people will loose their jobs to AI (see for example this article). I do hope that those people will be able to then focus on what they stand out in, being f-ing human.
Sources & Acknowledgments
- How creatives can double down on the skills AI will never replace (article) https://www.creativeboom.com/tips/how-creatives-can-double-down-on-the-skills-ai-will-never-replace/
- The Great Cognitive Handoff: How AI-Assisted Development is Rewiring Civilization (article) https://zakelfassi.com/blog/2025/2025-08-16-the-great-cognitive-handoff
- A Vision For Product Teams (article) https://www.svpg.com/a-vision-for-product-teams/
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