"One to five years left to contribute intellectually": a San Francisco designer's diagnosis — "pure software design is over"
Oct 28, 2026Original Bae in the bay · YouTube ↗
"You have one to five years left to contribute intellectually." An Anthropic AI researcher said this to Stanford computer science PhD students. In a video posted on Oct. 28, 'Bae in the bay', a YouTube channel run by a product designer in San Francisco, used that line as the starting point to diagnose the next one to five years for designers. After viewers heard her last video as "we're all doomed," she set out to offer a diagnosis instead of despair.
"Career planning itself is broken"
The starting point is a 45-minute Stanford talk by an Anthropic researcher. He said even a PhD, long the safest bet, can no longer be counted on as an asset that holds its value. With every new model bringing both awe and shock, he said it is hard to plan even a year ahead.
Two essays that made her believe it
Rich Sutton's "The Bitter Lesson" (2019), which argued that pouring in compute beat imitating the human brain, and Leopold Aschenbrenner's "Situational Awareness" (2024), which predicted AGI by 2026-27 and superintelligence by 2035 at the latest. She said reading the two broke her belief that humans are inherently superior.
"Nobody says it out loud, but everyone is preparing"
A design director at a big tech company told her the company had asked for a roadmap to prepare for having fewer designers. Even that director, with decades of experience, is quietly preparing plans B, C and D and growing a speaking career.
If it can be measured, it will be automated
She cited the line "what can be measured gets automated." As the measurable keeps expanding until even taste is automated, her diagnosis is that the people who last will be those doing work that deeply moves other people.
Close the gap between belief and action
The Anthropic researcher was not only gloomy. He called the next one to five years a "golden age" and urged people to do work that keeps its value over time. If you believe this is real, align your work and plans with that belief now. His conclusion: "work on fun projects."
"Pure software design is over"
She drew a line between that and saying product design is over. What is ending is designing software screens alone. The way forward is to combine design, product sense and engineering and "own" a product end to end; engineers without product sense, she said, are the ones truly at risk. She is also looking at physical products.
In the end, design is storytelling
When anyone can build software with a single prompt, people will ask "why use yours when I can build it myself?" Her answer is the maker's authenticity: trust that they will keep fixing it, keep it secure and not abandon it. Pointing to The Browser Company, which has a "storytelling team" instead of a marketing team, she said the essence of marketing is telling people why you do this work.
Helplessness more than anxiety
What many people feel now, she said, is less anxiety than helplessness, closer to an existential crisis. Taking on work beyond their role gives them power and emptiness at once, and people who used to work late are turning to nature, hobbies and side projects. She expects moving up the ladder to get much harder within five years.
Still wanting to stay in tech
She admitted it is "scary" but said she wants to stay in tech. Her plan is to work small, with ownership, and make design engineering videos. Designers, she said, are like anthropologists who study how technology can go wrong and what people actually need. The video ends by urging viewers to see the future through their own lens and do fun work.
