Sebastian Rogers, design researcher shaping the future of Canva, on interacting with AI effectively, dealing with imposter syndrome, and industry vs academia (#5)

In 2018, 4 years before the release of ChatGPT, Sebastian wrote an article detailing the creative potential of AI. Since then, he’s left academia and joined Canva, a graphic design tool with over 100 million monthly users across 190 different countries. Canva’s intuitive interface utilises a range of AI driven tools to help users create over 200 designs every second (Canva, 2022). Overseeing research into these tools is Sebastian’s role. Sebastian had a range of insights on how AI may influence the way we work, how to grow confidence in new environments, and what he’s learnt from his time in academia. Enjoy! Timestamps What got Sebastian interested in psychology and AI (1:04) AI and creativity (6:43) How AI can broaden our scope of work (11:32) The biases in AI (16:46) Rapid-Fire Questions (22:22) Imposter Syndrome (26:31) Academia vs Industry (32:31) Perfectionism as a barrier to behaviour change (35:24) How my interest in behaviour change has changed (37:07) Links Ideas Experimental evidence on the productivity effects of generative artificial intelligence | Shakked Noy & Whitney Zhang Quote from abstract can be found here (from an earlier version of the paper) 4000 Weeks | Oliver Burkeman The imposter phenomenon in high achieving women: Dynamics and therapeutic intervention. | Susan Imes & Pauline Clance Your Secret Mental Weapon: 'Don't Let the Perfect Be the Enemy of the Good' | Neil Patel AI Models ChatGPT Khanmigo Gemini (AI) Canva Photo Editing