I take a break from working on designing a book cover to go downstairs and do some dishes.
Go into the bathroom, where I've been doing dishes during the kitchen renovation, slink back the shower curtain to find the plates, spoons, and glasses soaking in an old cat box. Before I get to work, I pull out an ear bud and stick it in my ear. Audio is kind of the only way I have time to read books these days because when I'm not at the day job, it's book cover, book cover, book cover. Moving fonts around, building things from pixels.
Sometimes I listen to podcasts, and that's what I listen to now as I soap up bowls and run them under the shower faucet.
The podcast is about a guy building a startup with no human employees at all, only AI "agents."
I listen to him in a Zoom meeting talking with his "employees." He asks them what they did on their weekend. Between segments, music plays, and I wonder if the song was written by AI, performed by AI, sung by AI.
How many years do I have left of designing book covers, this thing I love to do, before AI is doing it all, before my clients are all gone? Ten? Five? Two?
I leave the dishes in another cat box to dry and go back upstairs again. This is why I take every design job I can get my hands on, work all the time, read my books through my ears. Well, it's also a good thing to make money when you're renovating a kitchen and you don't feel too confident about that day job (looming recession, struggling industry, AI, AI, AI), but also:
"I'm racing against the clock."
It pops out of my mouth as I get to the top of the steps. And it's melodramatic but it's also true. I'm racing against the clock to do this as much as I have the privilege to do this, before it's too late.
I sit back down at my computer. On the screen, built out of pixels, is an image of a clock.
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