From Skynet to Figma: why designers can't escape movie logic.

How Hollywood hijacked our brains and why uncertainty terrifies us more than actual threats.

We need to discuss something uncomfortable. That gnawing anxiety you feel about AI? The one that keeps you scrolling through LinkedIn posts about designers being replaced by ChatGPT? Your brain is actively lying to you.

And I’d like to prove it to you.

Hollywood wrote our AI story before AI existed.

Henry Modisett, Founding Designer at Perplexity, hit the nail on the head with this notion: every AI narrative we grew up with ends the same way. Terminator. Blade Runner. I, Robot. The machines destroy humanity. Resistance is futile. Roll credits.

What's wild is most of these stories were written decades before we had anything resembling modern AI. Yet they became our default mental framework for interpreting every breakthrough, every new model release, every demo that makes our jaws drop.

We're not afraid of what AI actually is. We're afraid of what Hollywood told us it would become.

But there's something deeper happening here, something Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert has explored in great detail about how our minds work. When we encounter ambiguous situations (and AI is nothing if not ambiguous), our brains don't just interpret the evidence neutrally. They exploit that ambiguity, filling in the blanks with whatever narrative feels most familiar.

The result? We see ChatGPT write decent copy and immediately think "Skynet is loading."

The real fear isn't job displacement.

Here’s the thing about what's actually terrifying you... It's not that AI will definitely replace designers. It's that you don't know if, how, when, or to what extent it might.

That uncertainty? It's triggering what Gilbert calls your psychological immune system — the mental defense mechanism that protects you from existential threats. And like any immune system, sometimes it overreacts to harmless stimuli. Like a mental case of lupus.

Your brain unconsciously "cooks the facts," focusing intensely on evidence that confirms your fears while giving friendly evidence a much lighter examination. (Ever notice how you scrutinize AI failures way more carefully than AI successes?)

You project today's limitations onto tomorrow's possibilities. You assume future AI-human collaboration will feel as foreign and threatening as it does right now.

But your psychological immune system can't predict how quickly you'll adapt.

The mundane reality check.

Remember when desktop publishing was going to kill graphic designers? When the web was going to eliminate the need for print designers? When mobile was going to destroy web designers?

Wrong. Designers didn't disappear. We evolved. We integrated new tools, developed new skills, and found ways to create value that technology couldn't replicate.

The current AI moment feels different because we're living through the transition in real-time. But step back for a second. What's actually happening with AI in design right now?

It's helping us iterate faster. Explore more concepts. Handle production tasks that used to eat up creative time. Generate starting points that we refine with human judgment.

It's less Terminator, more sophisticated Photoshop.

The generative UI revolution that's coming isn't about replacing designers. It's about fundamentally changing how we work — from pixel-pushing to conversation-driven design, from static deliverables to dynamic, contextual experiences.

Your psychological immune system is sabotaging your strategy.

Unconscious bias affects your decisions whether you acknowledge it or not. If you're letting Hollywood narratives and psychological defense mechanisms drive your AI strategy, you're basically letting your lizard brain run your career.

Mental exercise time: What if AI becomes as essential to design as computers became in the 1990s? What if refusing to learn these tools puts you at the same disadvantage as a designer who insisted on hand-lettering everything in 2010?

Your psychological immune system will try to rationalize avoidance ("AI lacks human creativity," "clients want the human touch," "it's just a trend"). But remember — that same system helps people find positive meaning in any situation they can't change.

The designers who thrive in the AI era won't be the ones who resist it longest. They'll be the ones who shape how it integrates with human creativity.

The choice is yours.

Your brain will keep interpreting AI developments through a threat lens until you consciously decide to reframe the narrative. You can let your psychological immune system drive your response, or you can recognize what's happening and make strategic choices.

Because the reality is your skills in navigating ambiguity, understanding user needs, and making creative leaps under uncertainty aren't going anywhere. They're exactly what the AI era demands.

We're not witnessing the death of design. We're watching the birth of something new. And unlike Hollywood's version of this story, we get to write the ending.

Next week, I'll show you exactly what that ending looks like — and why the death of the “WIMP designer” is actually the most exciting thing to happen to our industry in decades. And why Generative AI is nothing more than a fancy spaghetti-throwing machine.

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Note: I highly recommend Stumbling on happiness by Dan Gilbert, referenced in this article. You can get it on Amazon to read, or listen to it on Spotify.