Describe the next generation of design professionals?

Poorly paid, disrespected and subject to firing with no notice. I happen to disagree profoundly with Colanth on this one -- something that rarely happens. People assume that AI will be able to handle a LOT more than it seems to be able to. In fact, visual language is a language like any others and without meaning which computers can't seem to come up with makes no sense, so the job cannot be automated. With outsourcing, though, the suits can pretend the job is unskilled. On the one hand, David Byrne is correct in saying that there will always be a need for visual thinkers, so design will come back, but Dr. Edward Tufte has been making a good living by arguing that the Challenger disaster may in part be blamed on that some Boeing Engineers who should have and did expect that to happen were expected to present their expectations in a powerpoint presentation using default conventions which made it look like they were being clever rather than saying "these people could die" (which they did). It was not the engineers' fault but it is both a sobering reminder of what can happen without serious design professionals around and that many moneyed laypeople would rather not pay serious design professionals when even lives are at stake. So the next generation will not be affluent because our moneyed classes have to relearn some lessons they have spent the last forty years forgetting.