Judeslist
This podcast examines how individuals discover meaning when life changes suddenly and how their work aids them in navigating uncertainty.
Stories about love, work, and finding meaning when life changes.
Judeslist
Margarida Barreto: AI Accelerates the Visualization, Not the Judgment
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Margarida Barreto has spent over 20 years moving through every layer of design fashion, illustration, branding, UX, and now AI-integrated creative direction. In this episode, she brings a practitioner's clarity to one of the most misunderstood shifts in the design profession: AI hasn't removed the designer's job. It has relocated the most important part of it.
She draws a clean line between how AI accelerates visualization, research, iteration, mockups, and what it cannot replace: the judgment of what deserves to exist, why a brand matters, and what a client actually needs beneath what they say they want. For Margarida, the time AI frees up doesn't disappear. It moves into deeper thinking, more considered client relationships, and the kind of creative decisions machines can analyze but never feel.
Margarida admits she was fooled by an AI-generated video of a dancing parrot. Not a cautionary tale about technology, but an honest reckoning: even experts operate with blind spots, and transparency about that is what actually builds trust. She closes with a quiet provocation that as AI saturates our feeds with content that looks alike and means nothing, the things that will hold the most value are the ones that can still answer the question: why does this exist?
Key Themes:
- Human judgment in AI workflows.
- Design process evolution.
- Trust and transparency in AI-generated content
- Creator burnout and tool overwhelm
- IP and terms of service literacy
- The future of meaningful creative work
Key Takeaways:
- AI accelerates visualization but not judgment — the designer's role is shifting from operator to decision-maker
- Tool overwhelm is real; use aggregator platforms and master a few tools deeply rather than chasing every release
- Never delegate branding or logo work fully to AI — use it for brainstorming and mood-boarding, not final execution
- Transparency about AI use should come at the beginning of content, not buried at the end
- Reading terms and conditions matters use AI itself to summarize them and flag IP red flags
- What becomes rare and therefore valuable: human interaction, intentional stories, and work that can answer why
Hello Margarita. Welcome to Jutes Welcome to the Podcast. How are you doing today? Hi.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much for having me. I'm doing fine. Thank you.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. Thank you for joining me today. It's a pleasure. Can you tell us where you're speaking from and a bit about yourself?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm speaking from Portugal. My name is Margarita Borreto. I'm a creative director, partner at a Portuguese design and communication agency. I've been doing design for more than 20 years. Uh, went to different stages in the design process. So started on creating fashion designs, then rumbling to and draw illustrations, design for websites. Back in the days we used Flash and so on, and then continued to do branding, uh, a lot of posters, started doing more web design, UX and UI, um, and ended up uh in AI, using AI to help me uh in design. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Let's get into the heart of this conversation. What does it actually mean, being a top 100 AI creative? What does it actually represent to you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's a heavy weight, some pressure there, but I think it's well, it's an honor because I'm with uh alongside so many great artists, creators, and thinkers on the space. I think the main goal is to continue to be honored to be in that place. But I think it's the a mix of creativity, sharing, sharing mainly knowledge and helping others, trying to show different things with a very close attention to details and to how to do the things or in the right way and try to help other creatives or people that are simply interested in using AI in a way they can integrate into design.
SPEAKER_00What do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01I think I'm saying this because a lot of people still don't understand how they can really use AI into the in design. Some of them are thinking about AI like a magic tool or a magic recipe to solve everything. Others still feel very lost with so many tools and things happening in this space. So when I say this is like giving them a path or showing them the same path that I'm doing, like guiding them because of the mistakes that I made and the things that I learned in the process. And that's why I like to share with them. So I think, yeah, that's the answer.
SPEAKER_00Okay, can you give me an example? Walk me through end-to-end from you having an idea and you actually creating it, and walk me through some of the mistakes that you've made.
SPEAKER_01Well, one of the things that I talk a lot in even the training sessions that I do about AI is the don't do the mistake of trying to use and try every tool that appears. Try to avoid that FOMO that exists, and it's very difficult to avoid that, especially if you need to use the tools to explain to others. But there's there is um a constant rush to everything that is new to the space, and people need to try, and they sometimes spend a lot of time and went into a burnout just because there's a plethora of tools and they feel the need to try them all. The thing here is like you don't need to try them all. Some most of them are just similar to the ones that exist now. The content is the same, that is just marking, different marketing in the surface. So don't follow in the rabbit hole that I in the beginning also felt. Choose the right tools according to the problems that you have and stay with them. One of the things that I did was like learning two or three tools that are different in itself, but they complement each other. And understanding most of the features of them and knowing the things that I do from my traditional work, learn what is the best way to use them and integrate in my traditional work. And when it's time also not to use them, because sometimes people lose a lot of time thinking that okay, AI will solve all the problems. So I have to use AI. No, sometimes your skills, your natural and older skills are much important to that. So learn also when you need to stop and just take a step back and go back to Illustrator or Photoshop or whatever, and do it there. So, first of all, learn each tool is the best for you. Learn them well and integrate them on your workflows. You were asking me for some examples. Sometimes I'm doing like retouches, simple retouches, or I create something using, I have an image that I did on Midjourney. I like it because I use it a lot for brainstorming, ideation, mood boards. I choose an image and then I just go to jump into nano banana and ask it to keep exactly the same thing, but exchange the perspective or something. And somehow in the process, the image, the result, the output of nanobanana brings, let's say, an error. Sometimes it's much easier to just go back into Photoshop and clean it up using the normal cleanup tools on Photoshop than just being itinerating different changes on nano banana. This is just an example, a simple one. But sometimes people just need to, okay, AI is good for some things, but then it's not the magical thing for everyone, everything. So also don't be disappointed if something doesn't really go so well with AI. Also think that, okay, you can be able to clean up something or reproduce something using the traditional tools.
SPEAKER_00So you speak about going through a rabbit hole of choosing working with so many tools and deciding which tools to use. What did you do at that specific moment when you were deciding what tools to use?
SPEAKER_01Um, I think the best uh thing I can say is that I use platforms that integrate different tools. So they are like aggregators, and that's that's one of the things I say to people that are entering in the space or already using tools. There are very few tools that I feel that you can use just in a standalone edition, like Cling, for example, because you have, if you go to the Kling itself site, you have much more expanded features than if you use Cling over uh integrated aggregated platform. But for most of them, I say, okay, use like KREA or FreePick or Imagine Arts, where you have various tools to use for to test for image, for video, for 3D. Um, and that can narrow down the entering on a rabbit hole because you are using a platform that already has the answer for some or most of your needs. You have also upscalers in most of them. So the question is okay, there are a lot of this kind of aggregators of platforms. What is the best? I think it all comes down to costs and also to your needs. They are very similar, as I was saying before. So it's a question of you're seeing, okay, I use more of uh 3D. Okay, maybe free peak or Kraya should be on your list to choose about. Then you uh my first my second thing would say would be saying that to that person, okay, now just narrow down to the costs, see which one is better for you. I think that's a very personal uh choice. I cannot choose from all of all of them. Sometimes I use one, sometimes I I use another. It depends on the client and the specific needs that I need to address. But yeah, I would say narrow down to the aggregated tools.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So let's speak about how right now AI is making creativity more accessible, right? But is it really improving the quality of work?
SPEAKER_01I think we have more chances to get more results, but it doesn't um surpass the way of your creative process. So I think always the main thing to understand from the beginning is that AI does not remove the design process. What it does or should be doing is making you the designer to think more about the problems and the clients. And why? Because you now have much more chances to get in a small amount of time, more info to help you guide to build your product storytelling, and also you gain much more time to reflect about all the questions about the products, about your clients, which is the best idea to present as a response to that briefing. So in the past, much of this time was spent on research, early production, manual execution. You had multiple rounds of back and forth um to build visual ideations with the client, different approaches, and then you had to start everything from scratch. So now I can reach that kind of visual direction much faster, but you have to think that that time does not disappear, so it moves from there to more judgment from your parts. You have much more time to do the curation, the refinement, being more consistent. And in this phase, AI can help you more also nowadays. It's getting better and better. And you also have more time for editing and also to explain, to make this relationship with the clients. I think, yes, AI helps you a lot in some of parts for you to be faster. But on the other side, it makes your work or the expectations around your work to be more demanding. Because when you can generate 20 directions in a very little time, also your standards have to rise. So you need uh stronger taste, stronger clarity. So otherwise, you you are just creating more noise faster, and that's why some people already saying, okay, this is so AI slop everywhere. So I think it that's because of that. So I often say that AI accelerates the visualization, that visual part, but not the judgment. So the process, and I will I strongly believe in this, is still and will be human at its core for some time because someone still needs to understand the problem and decides what really deserves to exist. And yeah, just giving that the human touch, the intention, um, that is very important.
SPEAKER_00So what what you're saying is that AI improves how quickly now you can visualize ideas, but in terms of judgment, and that's where you need to spend time on trying to understand and formulate what you are trying to create. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_01Yes, because nowadays everyone can create, as you you were saying. So everyone can just uh pick up a prompt or a word and create something, but uh, where's the intention? What's the storytelling? What's the objective? Uh and that in design is very important because design is here to solve problems, to give solutions, uh, to help brands, to communicate something. And that that intention is the most important thing. And it's still human and it's still the most important part of the designer's job.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so bringing it back to what you do and your work, how do you formulate that judgment? How do you decide what is important?
SPEAKER_01What is in like formula the what is important or not for the client or for the process? It's almost the same thing because since the beginning, one of one of the first, well, in the beginning, when I was a younger designer, I was more into just uh following the guidelines uh very strictly, and again learning the right tools and mastering the right tools and delivering the most beautiful visual uh products or concepts today. That is still very important, but the question beneath is also very important for me today. That is, what is this product? Why why is it important? What is the product placement in the space, in the society? So that's one of the things that uh a machine cannot have that kind, it can analyze all of this in a very specific thing, like with numbers, with some kind of data, but the emotional part, the thing that can bring a more deepened construction or the idea of the product itself, I think that's the part where the designer must be focusing more. Not just the aesthetic, that's the second layer, but what does that product mean for itself? What does that brand bring that is different from the others to the community, to the to the people that are going to see that? So that's that is the fundamental part. And machines, AIs, everything they can analyze it, but in a very analytic part. They don't have this emotional connection to it. And of course, this depends from person to person, your experience, but that's the thing that makes the difference in the kind of design that you present. And there is also another thing that is, of course, today we communicate a lot by emails, WhatsApp, you don't see the face of the other person, but it's still very important to see the expressions, the way they communicate. When you are doing this with a client, you feel more than what they are just saying. And this is something no machine can read or learn how to do at this stage. So this is again a very humane thing. I think designers have a huge impact here because sometimes we are dealing with clients that they don't even know what they want. So sometimes you just need to understand all the things that are under their questions and needs. And that is one of the things that make a total difference, and that's why I think a lot of people say, okay, designers will disappear. I don't think um, I think the role will shift, our role will shift. We are we need to adapt more, going taking back the part of we do everything, or are we very in an operative field and start to be in a more director, like building the systems, uh building meaningful stories, and making decisions. And I think that is the the shift, but our role is still very important, and I think it will be even more important in the the next few years at least.
SPEAKER_00Can you define what a traditional role was and this shift that you're thinking of?
SPEAKER_01Well, what is the tradition and traditional meaning or role of the designers and what we are, I think the shift is, is because when you when you work in uh small agencies, and this is mainly my background, and even now my company is not is a small, medium-sized company, but a designer used to have still has to do a lot of jobs. So we talk with the clients, we resolve the briefings, we do a little bit of social, we respond to emails, we do the drafts, we we do the final arts, we send them to the printer, we learn a lot of things, and we the same range of time. And I think now all these tools can help us doing that kind of little works that we were spending a lot of time, and they were not the game changer for us or nor for the client. And so we'll have more time to do that thinking of the stories, to do that the best decisions, to spend more time learning about our client needs and presenting better solutions with much more juice, if you want. So, because most of these little things that are not so little, but we spent a lot of time managing them. Now we can just make them more faster with the help of AI, of course, and spend our time with more important stuff that really will put some impact in the final results.
SPEAKER_00So I guess what I'm asking is how do you decide what is important to work on versus delegate to AI?
SPEAKER_01What do I decide it's important to delegate to AI? Well, I wouldn't never delegate to AI, for instance, a logo, a branding. I would never delegate that for an AI. I can use AI to give me some brainstorming about the look and feel that I can or I would like to approach or experiment, but I would never use AI, at least for now. I don't like to say forever, but for now, at this stage, for present it to a client like a final essay. I use AI tools for helping me, I don't know, just like I was saying, the the first thing I use it is for brainstorming. So, but when I I go into these tools, I always already have my pre-defined idea. So I never use it to give me the idea. Because if you do that, you're just having the same idea over and over again, it's not different. You have to use AI to refine your and go further to go to refine your ideas. Sometimes what I do is to look and feel of things, the styles that I want to recreate, to explore, but never as a final judgment. So I would never I think the branding is the the best um example that I could have uh have done because it's not um it's not not professional. If you try to to use AI to recreate brands, you'll see that they are all very, very similar and and very basic.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so walk me to a walk me through an example. Say you were creating a logo, walk me from start to finish how you would work with AI to create the final output.
SPEAKER_01Well, I would start with doing my research. In my research, I would use definitely AI to help me on that, to find me some mood boards to help me see and research what are the competitors for my brands. I would ask it to help me find some product placement. And while AI would be doing that, I would also start with the ideas from myself and just drafting some ideas on my sketchbook or on my illustrator files. And with the response of AI, I would combine everything together, see if the research done with AI, the AI was bringing me something new to the table. For sure it would be. So I would be embedding more of that information in my sketches. Afterwards, of having the brand already done in Illustrator, I would just jump into another tool. One of the tools that I really like and enjoyed for this is Pimento. And it's a tool that allows you to create, like from a briefing, it creates a mix of pieces where your brand can be used in um outdoors, t-shirts, whatever you ask them. So, and it's very professional. So I would ask, okay, create me some mock-ups for using this logo with this look and feel for this fashion store. So I would have a lot of images with my with my logo embedded there. Then I would put everything together in a presentation and together with the previous, I forgot this step, with a previous mood board that I could have done also in my journey just to help me to get some ideas for the colors or even the store, the look of the store, for example. And then I would put everything in um in a presentation and send to the client uh for approval. So here in all of this, I use AI to help me exploring and And researching. I use the AI to help me with the mood boards. I use the AI to help me fasten the mock-ups. And if I want to present a thing even more professional or just to really sell the idea, I could use AI to create like a mini animation logo, or I could create a model and putting putting her wearing some of the clothes with a logo or something and just add it up to the presentation. So if I didn't use AI on this, so if I have to go back like five years or seven years ago and do all the things that I'm doing now to the same client, but with so many different deliveries, I'm talking about the difference in time of delivering, like I know, two or three weeks plus then now. So and time is money, and of course, this is all this is all very important when you're when you're talking about these jobs with sensitive timelines.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And and now compressing all of this workflow in in in such a short period of time, how long does that take you?
SPEAKER_01Compressing all of this work in such a period of time, how does it take me? How much time does it take me? Yeah, it's what I was saying, like the idealization and um the part of me creating the logo, it's almost the same because I'm still doing it manually. However, all of the other things around are much uh faster. So for instance, five years ago, maybe I would be taking three weeks to do this or four weeks. I don't even been putting here the part of the video because that's another thing. But if I had to, it would be impossible to in the first draft to be presenting that. So the video part here nowadays is like um a sherry on the top of the cake, and it's something that I cannot even compare compare to five years ago because it's something new. But I'm saying like today, I'm using like two weeks instead of the four weeks from five years ago.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And and in this process, what decisions, what decisions do you think matter the most?
SPEAKER_01Decisions?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01So in this project, in this process, what decisions matter the most? I think to accelerate the process so you can really say that okay, I'm gaining time, it's knowing the right tools, what they are capable of, and which of the tools really make sense to use in your workflow for what you're doing. The case that I gave you, like the piment one, is one of the tools that I've been using from the beginning. I learned about it. And when they come up with this kind of thing that they have the briefing, it was like a game changer, and it's still something that I use a lot because it really facilitates in the part of creating these mockups for a variety of outputs. Like from a prompt, you can instantly generate ideas for social media, euro pages, newsletters, mockups, stands, um, you name it. So here it helps you a lot. So knowing the right tools makes the significant difference. Also, if you get if you have uh an LLEM very well trained uh with your data, with your information, you can also narrow down the mistakes. You gain time to accelerate all the other processes uh there are depending on that. Because if I already have uh a good chat GPT or a CLOD or whatever, very if very well with good knowledge, you will give me a quicker and faster and better response so I can use it to continue my branding work. Yeah, so I think it's knowing the right tools and also learning how to work with them.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so Margarita, just to add to that, learning how to work with the tools, let's clearly define what separates like meaningful work from noise.
SPEAKER_01For me, meaning meaningful work is the one that really makes impact in something, it changes something and it has uh a story behind it. It's not just a product for itself just to because it's pretty or but doesn't have any juice. So I really like to work with things that I I feel related with, that I embrace their values that resonates with me, and that I and if in top of that, if I feel that they are really changing the world or making some kind of good impact, I think it was related when I was talking about AI slop or people just doing AI creating for creating without any meaningful behind it. Because what I going back to the the previous questions, because AI is giving so like that kind of democratization of everything. Everyone can access. This is not correct because not everyone can access. That's uh a big uh a big mistake we still we think because it depends on the place you are, in the part of the world you are, and I think that is also something that is very dear to me to fight that and try to make that these kind of tools can be accessible to others, because if they don't have access to it, they will be even more far apart of the evolutions that we are living. Going back to your question, the problem is I don't know how we can solve this, but I think the audience will solve this for us. And when I say the audience is the consumer itself, and this is all again related to brands and consumers. When you start to see or when the consumers start to see AI everywhere, they start to question is this real? So one of the things that I see is like in the beginning, consumer doesn't want to know if it's made or don't care if it's AI till it cares. And what we are seeing today is a lot of people getting started. They not started, but they are getting very upset with the so much use of AI everywhere. They don't know what is real, what is not, and what they can trust. So when I say that the maybe the consumer will give us the answer to this, it's because I think in not so long term, people will just come back to the the traditional and more and even more artistic way of doing things. Yeah, and they will start to give more credit to the brands that can combine technology with humane craft.
SPEAKER_00So who who in this period who decides who decides what is real and what is not?
SPEAKER_01That's a problem. Who decides what is real and what is not? I think the creators should be transparent on that. And that was one of the things that I always tell my students, and I'm always very transparent with my clients. If I'm using AI, I'm using AI. Since the beginning, when I started posting on social media and sharing my stuff, I always had a disclaimer beneath my my posts on my images that I was saying, I'm using AI for this. This is not real. However, when you see my stuff, you see, okay, this is not real because I it's not much of the time I do creepy stuff or different stuff that you see that they are not real and they do not pretend to be real. But you see a lot of fake news, and that's a very difficult issue to address. I think we should have more conversations about this, more policies about this. You have a lot of platforms now that embed some kind of you do not see it, but digitally the artifact is there to identify those images or videos and say that they are AI. However, to the normal consumer that is not in this space and is confronted with that kind of information, if it's not up front of him, they don't see. So I think this should be something that the creators would be obliged to state. There are conversations in the UM European Union. We are, it has been a very big discussion. This is something that till the end of this year should be taken in place in every community, creators to be saying that they are using AI. But I think till you don't have any kind of responsibilities from the platforms itself where you post uh this kind of information, it will be very difficult to just like be the policeman for every person who is using AI and just spreading, for instance, man, fake news that is the our unfortunately our days and days.
SPEAKER_00So do you think it will get to a point where and uh maybe are we already there yet where consumers can't tell the difference between what is real and what is not?
SPEAKER_01If we are getting to a point that is is somehow difficult to see, what if it's if it's real or not? I think we are already there. Even last year, I had some people, well, even in the first times that I started posting things, um, I had people you looked at the the images and you would say, okay, this is this is not real. But back in the days I had people saying that I was uh misleading some kind of images and pretending that that they were real, even when I was stating that they were made with AI. So this was something that put me a red uh flag in my mind, and thinking that not everyone is well informed as we that are in this space. So you need to have extra um uh care when you're doing this kind of stuff. And I'm talking in the days that AI was not so good as it is today. So even then, there were people that were doubting if it was real or not. So today, with the technology and the capabilities of some of these tools and the expertise of the people using them, of course, you have a lot of things that it looks like real. I have to say, I was misguided by a parrot that I was following on Instagram. I was really enjoying the parrots, and then one day I thought I learned that it was based on a real parrot, but now that one that I was following was AI generated. So even I was uh fooled by by AI. Uh, this was not something that would be my my life now is completely messed up, no, but we have to say that for other kinds of information uh or things that that happened, this can be very, this is very powerful and can be very dangerous. So at this moment we have things that really you said something interesting.
SPEAKER_00What does it mean to be fooled by AI?
SPEAKER_01Because I was said, what so you asked me what does this mean to be fooled by AI? I was fooled in the sense that I use AI daily in with multiple tools, so video, audio, narration, images, you name it. And I tend to think that I can know when something is made with AI or not. However, in this specific thing, it was so well done that I I think I wanted to believe that it was real, because in reality, that parrot was making things that were were not normal to uh a parrot to be done. So so many days it was like doing uh it was like a circus performance, and uh, this parrot is so intelligent, it's doing so many things. No, no, no. But um, I think in that case I can say, okay, I'm used to AI tools, but maybe in the back of my mind, I really wanted that to be true, so I didn't even question that it could be made with AI or not. But the thing is, okay, this was not a problem, it was just a parrot dancing. The problem here is with people that are looking at informations or videos that are made with AI, they are presenting fake or you name it, bad things uh in in message in a message, and people believe that they are real, and we are in that stage. You have people that are not real, conversations that are never existed, number of things. So the same way I was fooled by AI, but it was not a problem. Other people are getting can be fooled by AI in a more dangerous way. So this is happening again.
SPEAKER_00So what what I want us to define is what does it mean to be fooled by AI?
SPEAKER_01What does it mean to be fooled by AI? Well, I was I think I thought I was seeing something that it was not, and so it was not something that was forced to me, but made me think that it was real. And this is a problem because sometimes you see what you want to see, and again, that can be very problematic when we are taking talking about misinf misleading information and again the fake news.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so after you after after you processed that now this is AI, how did that make you feel?
SPEAKER_01Dumb. So after I processed that it was AI, I felt like I was fooled. I got scammed by AI. How was this possible? But then I started to think, okay, I was fooled because I wanted to be fooled, because I didn't question enough. I should at the second video, I should start it to be like, okay, this is not real. The parrot cannot be doing so many dancing and doing so many crazy stuff every day. Oh, yeah, that's something strange is happening, but that's the problem. Um, sometimes you just go to Instagram or TikTok or you name it, just to relax, have fun. You don't have you don't want to question things.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01So, and it's in that space when you don't want to question things, you're just like uh taking um some time off from your problems and mine and da-da-da. These things happened, and yeah, I got scammed or fooled.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so this is the contradiction that I also want us to explore, Margarita. That even as a top AI creator, you're using some of these tools that we're at a point where you are even having a challenge clearly identifying whether a video is AI generated or not, and then you're expressing that you've been fooled by by by this video. Does that change your perception of one, your positioning as an expert in the space? And two, how did you process that when that happened?
SPEAKER_01Well, it just made me think more. It's even now more important to be with the two eyes very wide open to question everything more than ever, and to be the most transparent, even more than I am, about all the the things that I do. And if you, in this case, if I am using or exploring things very photorealistic, always explain that is very explicitly that is AI. Be aware that most of the people, like 99% of the people who are seeing something, they don't see till the end. So don't put in the end that is made by AI, put in the beginning, put in like the big captions. So we know you are not doing in a bad faith attitude to just mislead someone. So be very open to be transparent about this kind of stuff. And uh in the end, that made me question the if I that I'm very used to doing and see all of this in a moment of weakness, in almost in my bedtime, seeing this parrot, I got uh miss a misleading information about the reality of it. Um, how would my mother or grandmother react to something that would be much more important and they could be misguided about some kind of information? So yeah, it didn't put me like doubting my my capabilities, but seeing that I I need to be even more aware and almost trust nothing.
SPEAKER_00Okay, good. So what questions are you asking yourself if now you're consuming content and you trust nothing?
SPEAKER_01What what questions am I am I putting now for not not trust nothing? Well, one of the things that I I have done over the years with things that I they matter to me is always go to find another point of view of that or some historic facts or traditional news that reported that the same thing, understand different point of views because all stories have two sides. So if you just get one side of the story, it's biased. Go grab all the information that you have about something. Of course, I'm not saying, okay, I saw the parrot, I'm now I'm going to grab all the information about the parrot. No, but for important things, just go do your research. Don't forget about the traditional media, also regarding whatever you say about the traditional media, just go there, grab information, join dots, and make your mind about everything you access. But don't just believe in one side. And this is about AI or anything else. You have to just think about things, question them, and do not believe because it's there. If it looks strange, it smells strange, it acts strange, maybe it's strange. Go go find uh another perspective, go search if it's true, make your homework.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so then how do you decide what is true?
SPEAKER_01What when I decide what is true, when I gather specific information that I can rely on, and after joining the dots, I see, okay, this makes sense, that doesn't make sense. Um, sometimes things are not just black or white, they are in the middle. So maybe going back to the parrot, maybe the parrot itself wasn't fake, it was based on a real parrot. So there's always something true in some stories. Just go dig and somehow somewhere down the hole you'll find the truth.
SPEAKER_00Okay, and then uh to add to this conversation as well, as a creator, how do you build trust? How do you create trust with your work?
SPEAKER_01Well, as a creator, how do I build trust uh with my with my work? I think this this was something that I'm not was born with me, but I'm I'm very sincere and I know all of all of my clients very very close, and I was always very transparent with the use of everything, even when we were talking only about stock images, you name it. So I have a very close and trust relationship with all the the clients and the brands, and also because I accept accept or I tend to work only in things that I really believe. So if I believe in some project and if it if it makes total sense to me, um I have a relation of trust with it because I bring everything to the table, because I I really see myself on that project. Clients and brands for me only make sense if I work with them in a kind of partnership, and I think that's the only way to for it to work. That brand is also mine in the sense that I do everything for it because I believe in that. So I want it to thrive, so I want to make the client communicate that brand in the right way, and when I'm working that, it's like it was it's it is also my brand because I really believe in that. Because if I don't believe in the in that project, in the end I I maybe won't uh accept that because the thing has to make sense to me, so I can also have the freedom to create, because I think creativity also comes from that kind of freedom when you really enjoy something and you just dream awake, and the creativity is much more fluid and happens even um faster and in more quantities. So this kind of trust, it's the principal thing because it's a partnership of trust, and sometimes most of the times of friendship too.
SPEAKER_00How do you choose what project to to work on to pour yourself into?
SPEAKER_01Well, sometimes most of the times I the clients that see my work come to me. So if they they come to me because they saw my work, is it because we have some point common ground? And that's the First step. And sometimes it's the something you cannot explain because you see, okay, this resonates with me. The objective of that somehow I cannot explain, but I feel it feels feels right. Other times is because you see that uh the message of that client makes total sense in the beliefs that I have. Imagine I'm I'm very into nature and animal welfare. So ONGs come to ask for help, and of course I will do the work because we are talking the same language, we are in the same uh in the same path, and I want to help you. So it's this kind of um almost ethical and moral arrangement that I have if it if I see it feels right in the path that I'm trying to do with the the work that I do, so you're totally welcome.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So to add to that as well, Margarita, you you said now in your creation process, you you're thinking more, right? You find yourself thinking more.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Now in my creative process now, I'm thinking more. Going back to one of our first questions about the time we have now because of the use of these tools. This is one of the things that I have. I have the possibility now to think more and to engage more and more deeply with some questions, and also the opportunity to explore that uh that kind of questions. So imagine it's like maybe some time ago my work could be more reactive. So because the time is the same, and we had without help of this kind of tools, we had the same kind of work, but the time was the same. And I just had to react, react, react, react. Now we have more time to deliver those those um those works that are not so important, but if they are done with AI, they are still reliable. But then you have time to you have time to go deeper into to things, and sometimes to okay, now I have a a new thing that I I thought that could be a good fit to the client, and I can produce it at the same time. So it gave me like um expansion in that sense, made me try to try to made me be able to deliver more things, not in the same time, but of course, things still take time to do. I'm not, it looks like I'm saying, okay, everything is done in five minutes, and I hate that kind of statement because as a designer, all my life we spent our work days like this should be have been done for yesterday. It's five minutes and you can then do it, and it's not true, and that's another problem that we now have with AI, because everyone see, okay, everyone is saying that AI is so fast, super fast, so you can do more things in the same time. We have to be very cautious about that because again, it can bring us to burnout that with that thing that I was talking in the beginning, that rabbit hole of the needs of being testing and seeing everything, and also with this rush of it's easy, you have the help of AI, AI can do it, so you can produce more. I think this can be very dangerous to designers, to agencies, and even to the to the market. Um, and in the end, to the consumer.
SPEAKER_00What is the problem there?
SPEAKER_01There are a lot of problems because if you need to do something, of course, there are things you can do quickly. The problem. The first thing I I have to say, it's the the designer itself, the problem he has, because this will tend to have um more chances of burnout, because it's too much, too many things to input to to this the designer or to the agency. So the people is still one person or two, but we have to take be very careful with this. The second problem is the quality. So if you are just creating for create for the sake of creating, of generating, going back to the thing we were talking about, the intentions, you're just producing more noise because quantity it's not quality. And the third one, I think it's also connected to all of this and the thing that I was talking about before, the trust, because you are putting so much. I don't want don't want to say the word garbage because it's not, but let's go with the AI slop or slop content. It's so much, the market is so overwhelmed with the content that the person can ask, so which of this is important? Which of this makes the difference? I don't trust anything, any of this, because they are all the same, they are all starting to look alike, and again, they may have not quality, you'll have the teams that are totally tired and fatigued, the client won't be happy in the end, and even if in a short term the client feels it's okay, or the audience feels it's okay, or even if the designer is happy with this, in a medium long term, this won't be this won't be resulting. Okay, this is not the way.
SPEAKER_00So the three problems you identify, Margarita, you said one would be designer overwhelmed uh with work. Yes. Overwhelmed, two, you also spoke about quality, and then you also spoke about AI slot, right? So, what answer have you come up for yourself where you you solve this problem as a creative?
SPEAKER_01Well, I use how do I solve this problem as a creator in terms of avoiding this kind of overwhelming lack of trust and AI slot. So, well, the first thing I told you before is like in somehow, in one way, I have to try a lot of tools because I also teach them, so I have to explore them. But I'm very careful about that. If a tool comes out and this is almost daily, I don't rush into the exploration. I just let's take some time, let's see how how the the rest of the world reacts. And with with time, I'll go there and check. The other thing about the so this avoids me of that kind of crazy burnout of experimenting tools. And the other thing about the trust, I think I I already told you, I don't use the AI form first to end on the project. I use it in specific points. I don't use it just for the sake of using AI. I use it when it makes sense. And everything that I try to create, I'm always in some kind of response to something. I think that is also something related to my work because design also comes from a kind of response of solving a problem, answering a question. So I use these kinds of tools also to help me respond for some kind of thing that I want to solve or to or to show. In my case, it's also or mainly about storytelling, presenting some use cases, or even imagine I'm just trying a tool, and here I'm trying to solve the almost the three problems. A tool came out. I'm going to test it. So I'm going to use this as a demo for other creators. So they don't need to try for themselves, they just see here if this fits for them. So I'm also doing something, I'm building trust, I'm being transparent, and I'm also helping others with my storytelling. Um I think it's the a way I can solve or minimize these three points.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I think that's a wonderful way to put it because you now you're learning from experience and you're also giving back in such a way that people don't have to make the same mistakes you made and go through the same challenges.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think they don't have to make the same mistakes or try to dig for themselves. Like, okay, I'm seeing this, these are the main features, makes sense to me, doesn't make sense to me. Just if it makes sense, I'm going to explore. If it doesn't make sense to me, I won't take my time on this and I'm jumping to the to the next.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay, okay. So now uh Margarita, let's also speak about the future. In in this space we're in, what becomes what becomes rare, what becomes valuable in this creative space.
SPEAKER_01Well, in this creative space, what becomes rare and what becomes important, yeah. Um I think what com becomes rare is human interaction and again the the meaningful beneath the things because you see you see a lot of things being just created, and you ask, what is the intention here? Why was it why it was done? What is the question? I think everything is what is the question here, and you don't have um any sort of answer, and I think that's the problem that we may be facing, but again, I don't want to repeat myself, but I believe that this will be solved with the public consumer impressions, because in the long term people will start just looking at this like it's just another copy of a copy of an AI copy, and the difference will start with meaningful things, things that are really changing something that are making a difference, and that are that are really telling a story. It's shut it's just not an image for the sake of an image or a video of something funny. I think this they will still have their place, but they will be losing some of the impact that they have nowadays. And because the true stories or the real stories are becoming rare, they will start to have even more impact. That's coming going back again for from the things that I was talking about, the brands. People will start and are already starting looking for more handcraft things. And even the people that are producing things, maybe because they are having more time, they are now also learning new skills for and made stuff and connecting with um different things in life that before they didn't have time. And maybe this is all I don't know, I'm maybe I'm rumbling here now, but I was just thinking about this now. But maybe with all of this going on going on, we are now approaching to a more humane side because you see a lot of people starting to feel um more with more needs to talk to others, to be more in touch, to go back to nature, to to put their hands on the dirt and start growing vegetables and fruits. I don't know, but maybe it's all it's all connected and it's a natural uh thing to we we are going to to see in the the next few years. I don't know. It would be nice if it was like that.
SPEAKER_00Okay. And uh on the speaking on the on the humane side of things, what are you going back to?
SPEAKER_01I'm going back to something that I'm trying to nurture this year that is helping others in a more closer way. So the last few years I was very into my computer and just working remotely. And with AI, I start to knew an innumerable group of people in real life because of AI. I started to go and speak on enormous events and be more closer to others. I start doing training and do in-person live sessions to help other designers and agencies to understand how they can use these uh these tools. And this year I'm also trying to, as I told you a little bit before, I want to go and talk with some people that are very pushed aside of the society to make them embrace these technologies. So that is my humane part thriving from AI and because of AI, because of course this all happened because of AI.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay. Margarita, we're we're almost wrapping up with our conversation. Do you have anything else you want to add?
SPEAKER_01Well, I just want to add something very simple, and because we also talked here about addicts, the fake news, and etc., I just wanted to add something that I I always say, and I think it's very important for people who are using these tools to try to avoid the bias of the tools, to read the terms and conditions of the tools, to understand the data sets where these tools are basing their data, and be very aware about all the new tools that exist and read the terms before using them.
SPEAKER_00So, as a creator, have you ever read the terms and conditions of the tools before using them?
SPEAKER_01I have to be honest, before AI, no, but after I got more conscious about all the things of the training data sets and the problems about privacy, IP concerns, that was one of the things that I started. Okay, I have to be more conscious, and I really need to know what I'm using, not just for me, but also because of other creators that can be having their images trained on the data sets that I'm using, and for my clients, because that is very important. I cannot be using my client's images in some model that is also using that the same images to train other models. So it's the trust that you need to take care of, and it's very important. So yeah, and one of the things that I do, because yeah, there are a lot of terms and conditions and a lot of text there. So pick the terms of conditions and put in the Chat GPT and ask them, okay, summarize this to me and show me the red flags about IPs and so on. So it's very simple. We just need to keep that in mind because we may be using other creators' imageries or um or information or even giving us our information to these tools.
SPEAKER_00And uh, since you started reading the attempts and conditions, what have you started learning?
SPEAKER_01That they are very strange in the way they say state things, and they put a lot of things that doesn't quite matter. I think it's for you to, okay, I don't want to read all of this. And in the end, it's all very complicated. And I wouldn't say it's not trustworthy, but you have to take care and be conscious of what you're doing, especially with those tools that are asking you for your permission to access everything. So you are not obliged to give the permissions of everything, but if you learn how to use the tools, you understand how to protect yourself too. So I'm not saying for you not to use the tools, but understand what these tools are capable of and how you can protect yourself.
SPEAKER_00I must admit, I also haven't read the terms and conditions behind most of these tools.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think it's almost I didn't that was something I never thought about before. And who reads that? Yeah, but I think now it's important because of the data sets and not just because of that. Um, even if you use a tool uh very often, just check out how they behave also in social media. I think people need to be really need to be more aware of things. Um, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00And I think the tricky part is most of these companies they make the terms and conditions like so complicated and so long that sometimes you you're like, why even bother to read?
SPEAKER_01That's the the main goal. I think that's the objective. The terms and conditions so long and complicated that you don't want to spend your time reading that, and you want so much of that tool that you just click click uh yes and accept them. That's not no problem at with doing that, but you need to be aware of the consequences of that. And AI is good for that, just put there the things that we are lazy to do and let AI uh summarize it to you. So that's uh I think that's a very real good use of AI. Yeah. Summarize the terms and conditions of the tools for you so you know what to accept or deny.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. We really got into some interesting touch points in this conversation, Margarita. But if someone only remembers one thing from our conversation, what should it be?
SPEAKER_01That's if someone listened to our conversation and should remember one thing, is that AI is not a solution for everything. And you need to be responsible for what you're delivering as uh an AI art piece or AI generated content. So be meaningful in what you produce and do. Of course, I'm not saying for you to not have fun, but um yeah, be more aware.
SPEAKER_00Awesome, awesome. And then in closing, in your own words, what's your definition of love?
SPEAKER_01In my own words, what is definition of love? It's something that makes me feel with the butterflies on my stomach and just spreads creativity all over my mind, eyes, and I don't know, maybe definition of love is my bunnies and the animals and everything that is good and should be preserved in this planet. I think, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for sharing. Thank you for sharing. I hope you enjoyed the conversation.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I did. I was not expecting this question in the end.
SPEAKER_00Yes, that that is what makes the conversation interesting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I agree, I agree.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. But thank you so much for your time. Uh I I enjoyed this conversation so much, it was very insightful.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you so much, and again, thank you so much for inviting me here, and very happy that you liked it.
SPEAKER_00And yeah, yeah, yeah, super. I hope you also enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01Yes, of course I did. Really, really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, didn't you?
SPEAKER_01Very nice.
SPEAKER_00Were my questions challenging?
SPEAKER_01Yes, they were. I was not expecting. Yeah, I told you like this one, the last one I think was the most difficult. But yeah, we had here some questions that were not so not so easy to answer right away, but because all of this is a very complex topic. There is so much so many layers to talk about, and all the things are interconnected, and it goes, I think you if we should narrow all this down, it's like trust, transparency, ethical morality, and and you and human side, all the and they are very complex topics to talk about, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, um it's true, and you know, now I feel like our definition for what we think we know is evolving even as we use these tools. So we can't we can't even define things explicitly anymore because we have to be open for new ideas in such a way that now there are new fields of technology, of humanities, of science, all combining and merging in such a way that it's like we're learning things for the very first time, you know. And I think it's a very interesting point where one of the things you said is that now we have to almost go back to what makes us human, you know, doing things with our hands, doing things with our our mind, thinking, asking questions, you know, using pen and paper again. You know, those those those are things that that I think more than ever is going to separate how we view and understand the world in this evolving landscape of what is real and what is not real.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, for sure. Truly agree. Yeah, I think that's that's the way. And maybe it's it's the way it should be, I don't know. Who knows? But yeah, you we are living, I think, incredible times, uh, for better or for worse, but we are we are living great times in in this part of technology and very defining. ones big changes, but I think we have to adapt.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much. So um yeah, it's been a pleasure. I'll stay in touch and I'll cycle back if I have more questions.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay, thank you so much. You two have a great day. Thank you so much. Bye-bye. Take care.
unknownBye-bye.