The sweeping presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be felt across nearly all social and economic domains. While the emergent, ‘black-boxed’ character of AI makes it difficult to pin down and interrogate, designers can ill afford not to engage with it in a pragmatic yet critical manner.
This panel will celebrate the publication of Rethink Design: A Vocabulary for Designing with AI (edited by Elisa Giaccardi and Roy Bendor, and available open access from TU Delft Open), by convening a critical yet generative discussion on the potentials, challenges and risks of designing and living with massively interconnected, potentially autonomous, and seemingly intelligent technologies.
Discussion topics will touch on questions pertaining to the effects of human–algorithm relations, the ethics of data collection and curation, the politics of multi-stakeholder collaboration with AI, and the need to develop democratic mechanisms to govern complex algorithmic systems.
Participants
Dasha Simons is a PhD candidate in Human-Aligned Video AI and Ethics at the HAVA lab. She explores ethical questions at the core of Video-AI, aiming to design methods in its development. Formerly the EMEA Lead for Trustworthy AI at IBM Consulting, Dasha continues to dedicate her time to IBM. Also, being part of Europe Direct, she supports the representation of the European Commission in the Netherlands on trustworthy AI. For more information: LinkedIn profile.
Kars Alfrink is a postdoctoral researcher at TU Delft, focusing on contestable AI. His research investigates how to design public artificial intelligence systems that remain subject to societal control. Before entering academia, Kars spent over 15 years as an interaction design consultant, entrepreneur, and community organizer, experiences that now shape his research. He combines extensive practical expertise in digital product design with critical socio-political theory to create more democratic public AI systems.
Dave Murray-Rust is an Associate Professor in Human Algorithm Interaction Design at TU Delft and co-director of the AI Futures Lab. He explores the relations that emerge when humans and technology become entangled, exploring the messy terrain between people, data and things . He works with with metaphors, prototyping, speculation and mess to re-think technology, whether robotics, AI, music or distributed systems. He works to ensure that there is space for humanity while making use of the possibilities of emerging technology.
Roy Bendor is Associate Professor of Critical Design in the Department of Human-Centered Design at Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, where he also directs the Design for Interaction (DfI) Master’s program. His research explores the capacity of design to disclose and promote alternative social, political and environmental futures. Roy is a Fellow of the Urban Futures Studio at Utrecht University, author of Interactive Media for Sustainability (Palgrave, 2018), and co-editor of Rethink Design: A Vocabulary for Designing with AI(TU Delft Open, 2024).