MY BRILLIANT CAREER | Write, play, learn - and embrace irony

What do you do for work?

I make pretty pictures for a living. It’s almost like a real job.

Many artists and other creative people are wary of AI and how it could disrupt their ability to make a living; are they right to be concerned?

Artists should be concerned, but not for the reason most of them think. AI will not replace the person with something to say. It will flood the market with competent work that has nothing to say, cheaply, and that hollows out the middle of the industry.

Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov is the useful example. He lost to Deep Blue, then built centaur chess, where a decent player with a laptop beat a grandmaster playing alone. That is the model. A good creative with AI is dangerous. What gets replaced is the person who was only ever executing someone else’s taste.

What did you want to be when you were a child?

An advocate, because it sounded impressive. I had no idea what they actually did.

Learn to write. Not copywriting, writing. It is the cheapest unfair advantage left in this country

What makes you good at what you do?

I ask better questions than most people, and I am not precious about being wrong in public. Half of design is noticing the brief is asking for the wrong thing.

What qualities do you look for when recruiting for your team?

Curiosity first, then the willingness to throw away a day of work without sulking. I would rather have someone who notices things than someone with a perfect portfolio.

What career advice do you have for young South Africans?

Learn to write. Not copywriting, writing. It is the cheapest unfair advantage left in this country. Then do the work in front of you properly, because nobody is coming to give you permission.

What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?

The best advice I ever got came from a creative director who told me to stop trying to be the most talented person in the room and start being the most useful one. Talent is common, but being the person others cannot get through the week without is not. It changed how I work.

My own version of it is this. You never stop playing, because to play is to learn. So never stop learning, and don’t be afraid of the new — embrace it.

Business Times