Can a Robot Do a Designer's Job? - Christopher Butler

Automation isn't as much of a threat as we have been told. Christopher Butler is a designer living in Durham, NC. "Wouldn't it be better if websites just made themselves?" That was the pitch for The Grid, a so-called website creation service "powered by artificial intelligence" that launched through a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. Less than five years later, after selling many memberships and releasing a very lackluster initial "Version 2" (was there ever a Version 1? some questions are not meant to be answered), The Grid ghosted. They locked their customers out of their own websites. You can still read their parting words on their website if you want to get a feel for a less-than-classy farewell to thousands of people who essentially had money stolen from them.