What’s a designer now?

How AI is redefining the role, practice, and value of design. Designers spent decades earning a seat at the table. Generative AI is redrawing the role faster than the profession can keep up: as the tools take on more of the making, the work, the posture, and the value of design are all in question.

Watch this hour-long conversation, hosted by Portable's Creative Director Joe Sciglitano, with designers working through this in real time:

• Luke Hespanhol, Head of Design at the University of Sydney, on what it means for how we teach and practise design.
• Pip Shea, Product Designer at CSIRO, on the daily reality of designing with these tools.
• Aishling Costello, Principal Human Centred AI Designer at Portable, on the ethics and responsibility of designing with AI, from a service design and strategy perspective.

The panel looks at how generative AI is changing design, from design thinking to product and interface design, and the tricky questions that come with it. They start with the bigger picture: the environmental cost of data centres, fast-moving AI policy, worries about jobs, and the commercial motives behind many AI tools.

Resources mentioned

• Pip's manifesto — The Critical Design Engineering Manifesto. A call for designers and engineers to take responsibility for the impact of what they build.
• The Open Data Institute (ODI) — theodi.org. A UK-based organisation working on how data is used across sectors. Their newsletter is insightful and wide-ranging — well worth subscribing to.
• The Ada Lovelace Institute — adalovelaceinstitute.org. An independent research body focused on making data and AI work for people and society.
• Data Feminism for AI — read the paper (PDF). Applies the principles of data feminism to the design and governance of AI systems.
• Ed Zitron's newsletter — Where's Your Ed At. A sharper, more sceptical take on the tech industry — included for balance.