Designing the future on our terms or theirs?

I write today's note as a lifelong technology embracer. We had the first Mac computer at home, my father was an avid collector of computers and were the first in our family to have internet.

Today I'm an AI power user who integrates it into my daily workflow and it enables me to deliver a quality of work at volume I have never been able to do before. I embrace innovation however we have yet to have data autonomy in this technology world.

After a very important keynote at Config with Meta's CTO, I'm questioning what future are we contributing to for humanity by using these tools as our design process becomes data and we don't own our data.

I was recently visiting my cousin who lives tucked away in a lovely little mid-Michigan neighborhood. We walked to the playground where her 10-year old daughter played. There was another girl who was a couple of years older who was Face-timing a friend as she played on the monkey bars, “Slay girl, slay!” her friend said to her. My cousin whispered to me and said “I’m so glad we didn’t get her a phone yet”. Almost as if she heard us, she negotiated with her mother on the walk home about all the reasons she needed a phone. 

I could emphasize with her daughter's position as I remember the first iPhone keynote in 2007 like it was yesterday. I was elated to be living this moment in human history. We would be more connected, could share distant lives in real time and maybe we'd solve our human problems.

Nearly 20 years later the phone has revolutionized our lives and unlocked opportunities never dreamed before particularly in business. However where we thought we would become connected in our personal lives rather we’ve become divided, distracted and confused. And our data is used against us in the form of an algorithm that perpetuates a mythological "reality" to a single person that doesn’t exist so that single person will continue scrolling. If there's a major event one could ask 10 people what the facts are and get 10 different answers because folks are living in their own reality.

The more isolated a person is the less they are able to comprehend that it's not reality. And isolation has a direct correlation to smart phones. These are real and serious problems we're dealing with and none of this came to mind when I saw the first iPhone keynote. We all thought it would be the opposite.

This is the lens I saw the Config keynote through between Meta's CTO and Figma's CEO.

The future according to a design tool corporation & social media corporation.

On Day 1 at the closing keynote during Figma’s Config conference Andrew 'Boz' Bosworth, Meta's CTO, described a future where designers might control their creative tools using just the signals from their wrist. The future they laid out is one where the design tool will go from optimizing your workflow, to anticipating your intentions and eventually read your nervous system. They spoke of EMG (electromyography) technology, which interprets electrical activity from muscles and nerves and is being developed to design and control interfaces with subtle movements or even mere intent.

The next question asked by Dylan Fields, Figma's CEO, was “Would you upload?” in reference to uploading one’s consciousness to a computer. The crowd was bone-chillingly silent and felt almost voiceless even over a video recording. I think everyone knew what he meant and, if they didn't, Boz clarified in his answer.

He responded that it didn’t seem to be that far away as he might upload this year: Maybe they just boot me up for Christmas and I'll check it out. But yeah, I probably would. He went onto describe that he would like to be around for his young children and grandchildren. This is a future that sounds like its on par with the Black Mirror episode or the tv show Upload.

Is the tech ready yet? Eh, who knows. This might just be one those flippant statements that tech companies are famous for making to increase their stock prices. It still an important discussion to consider the ramifications, if our futuristic visions align and our contribution.

I don't think it's a coincidence that on this same day during the conference's opening keynote Figma announced new AI integrations throughout their platform. Design tools which were once passive canvases for artistic and creative expression are being reimagined as predictive interfaces. These tools are going from passive to active environments.

Are we paving the way as designers? Whats the implications of our labor.

For the individual worker and human among us this shift raises urgent questions: what happens to creative agency when your tool tries to guess your next move? What happens to your privacy when those guesses are based on biometric signals? What are we really training when you design a button or sketch a wireframe? And how is our design workflow that is training Figma's AI (and Meta's) linked to this futuristic vision that Fields and Boz laid out.

This has real implications for labor as we're now data donors because we have to use these tools and AI is everywhere now. Yes it speeds up our workflows and yes it's incredible for ideating. Yet as generative tools become the norm across design, writing, and management workflows the line between tool and user is blurring.

These platforms don’t just serve work: they extract from it and require our creative decisions, micro-gestures, and iterative processes to do so. We become rich sources of training data. And is this an end-game that we all want? Because of continual legislative failures across the world we don't own our data. Will we have autonomy and consent in Figma and Meta's shared futuristic vision? These are very serious questions that we should be thinking about along with corporate legal teams.

Designers and knowledge workers are being positioned as both creators and paying contributors, as Figma is not free, to corporate-owned AI models. As these tools reshape how we work they also reshape who owns the work and who benefits from it in the long term. The push toward seamless productivity might actually be a push toward invisible extraction which is the process of collecting value: often data, labor, or attention from individuals without their clear awareness, consent, or compensation.

We already don’t govern the algorithms that divide us as a society and Meta owns a lot of them which causes more worry. Can we impact change in our working lives that we couldn’t for our personal? 

The creative process has always been deeply human. But as AI seeps into our tools we find ourselves negotiating a future where the vision laid out by Meta and Figma is where our labor is more than what we make: it’s how we think.

I am hoping that we get to design a future where we have data privacy, ownership and personal autonomy over our thoughts. These tech companies have a successful track record of demonstrating they cannot be trusted as they are irresponsible with our data and negligent of our autonomy. In the meantime I'm still going to embrace innovation and keep using AI albeit with my eyes and ears open.

• Linda