Rosenverse
Day 2 Panel

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Day 2 Panel

Gold
Wednesday, June 5, 2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Share the love for this talk
Day 2 Panel
Speakers: Sheryl Cababa , Ethan Marcotte and Milena Pribic
Link:

Summary

In this panel discussion, Cheryl Kaba, Ethan Marotz, and Meena Previ reflect on the challenges and opportunities of designing with AI. Cheryl highlights the need to think beyond narrow AI use cases, stressing long-term impacts and ethical considerations, especially in education where AI might replace teachers. Ethan points to AI shifting design roles to supervisory or editorial, raising concerns about de-skilling and labor protections, drawing parallels to recent labor strikes in creative industries. Meena emphasizes ethical AI practices, co-creation with stakeholders, and transparency, cautioning against blind acceptance of AI outputs. Together, they explore the importance of intentionality, participatory design, and power dynamics in AI systems, noting capitalism’s role in shaping AI's adoption and urging designers to critically engage in shaping AI’s future. The panel also discusses transparency in AI confidence, ethical frameworks beyond compliance, and the lifecycle of AI hype. They close with calls for conversations among coworkers about AI’s role, and critical questioning of who designs AI and for whom, advocating sustained reflection on AI's social and labor impacts.

Key Insights

  • AI design is currently in an experimental stage, often focused on narrow use cases rather than broad impacts.

  • The shift to AI often changes designers' roles from creators to supervisors, potentially leading to workforce de-skilling.

  • Ethical AI practices require active inclusion of marginalized groups in the design and feedback processes.

  • Transparency about AI confidence levels has decreased in modern chatbots, complicating trust and interpretation.

  • Designers must balance augmentation and automation carefully to avoid disempowerment and job losses.

  • Power dynamics are central to AI system design; systems should promote empowerment rather than control.

  • Sustainability and AI's environmental impact are often overlooked in technology discussions.

  • Ethical frameworks vary and should be adapted to specific communities and organizational goals rather than treated as universally equal.

  • Labor movements and unionization are relevant lenses to consider protections against AI-driven labor changes.

  • Effective AI integration requires intentional conversations and collective reflection among workplace stakeholders.

Notable Quotes

"We’re in this initial stage of tinkering, just trying to make the tech behave the way we expect it to."

"AI moves the practitioner into an editorial or supervisory role, which often signals de-skilling."

"We want AI to augment human skills like an electric bike, not replace them like a robotic vacuum cleaner."

"Who is designing these AI systems, why, and for whom? Are those most impacted even involved?"

"Designers need to have critical conversations with stakeholders about the direction and impacts of AI."

"Ethics is not just about compliance; it’s about doing the right thing holistically."

"Most people’s fears about AI are actually fears about capitalism."

"Transparency of AI’s confidence has mostly disappeared because generative AI is inherently confident by design."

"AI tools today are sandwiches in search of picnics—useful, but lacking killer applications yet."

"We need to redesign capitalism, but right now we don’t have time for that."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jemma Ahmed
Research at an inflection point: Adapting to a new era of collaboration, equity, and innovation
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Dan Donald
Design Systems as a Vehicle for Systemic Change
2023 • DesignOps Community
Chris Engledowl
A Mixed Method Approach to Validity to Help Build Trust
2023 • QuantQual Interest Group
Magdalena Zadara
Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Sam Proulx
Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Yulya Besplemennova
[Demo] Stress-testing GenAI in user research synthesis
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Nick Lewis
Designing and building low-carbon websites independently
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group
Jen Cardello
Curating insight: Strategies for integrating knowledge across research functions
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Aletheia Delivre
New Shapes and Emerging Identities for Design Ops
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Nathan Reiff
Research, from Unimaginable to Presently Possible: A Future-Casting Sticky-Note Sprint
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Kristin Skinner
Theme 1 Intro
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Ricardo Martins
Unlocking the power of advanced quantitative methods
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Dorelle Rabinowitz
The Magic Word is Trust
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Gabrielle Verderber
Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Sean McKay
Whole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Ellen Chisa
The Values of Design
2023 • Design in Product 2023
Gold

More Videos

Carl Turner

"When projects are late or delayed it’s often due to organizational and cultural issues rather than conduct of the project team."

Carl Turner

You Can Do This: Understand and Solve Organizational Problems to Jumpstart a Dead Project

March 28, 2023

Karen Pascoe

"Most employees take at least 90 days to onboard and another 90 days to become productive — that’s half a year before you see impact."

Karen Pascoe

Developing Experience Teams and Talent in the Enterprise

June 8, 2016

Jilanna Wilson

"Continuous onboarding is like drinking water in sips throughout the day, not a gallon all at once."

Jilanna Wilson

Distributed Design Operations Management

October 23, 2019

Shawna Hein

"Our digital experience group acts like hosts and planners making sure veterans sit down to a cohesive, inclusive meal, not just disparate dishes."

Shawna Hein Kevin Hoffman

Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts

November 17, 2022

Barb Spanton

"Quick fixes rarely exist in these domains because beneath every problem are layers of complexity."

Barb Spanton

Doing Work That Matters: A Look Beyond The Idealistic Notion of 'Doing Meaningful Work'

June 10, 2022

Briana Thomas

"Silent leaders are people who prefer action over words and advocate in more intimate settings."

Briana Thomas

The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams

September 24, 2024

Gina Mendolia

"Creating and holding space is like putting bumpers up in bowling so people know they won’t fail if they engage."

Gina Mendolia

Therapists, Coaches, and Grandmas: Techniques for Service Design in Complex Systems

December 3, 2024

Lija Hogan

"Future UX includes designing for user discovery in conversational and augmented interfaces, not just clicks."

Lija Hogan Milan Mijatovic Sam Proulx Louis Rosenfeld

Three Years Out: Perspectives on the Near-Term Future of User Research

March 15, 2024

John Calhoun

"With our new operating model, partners are more confident funding UX ops because of increased clarity and focus."

John Calhoun Rachel Posman

Two Sides of the DesignOps Coin: Teams Ops and Product Ops

January 8, 2024