Day 2 Session Notes–The Big Question about Impact: A Panel Discussion

 

Speakers

  1. Frances Yllana (Moderator)
  2. Jorge Argano (JA)
  3. Maria Taylor (MT)
  4. Brianna Thomas (BT)

Notes

  1. Welcome to panel and excited to introduce speakers.

BT: Currently Design Program Manager at Adobe, and in Brooklyn, NY.

MT: Run UX shop called Limina and located in Boulder, Colorado at Rocky Mountains

JA: Independent information architect and educator, and am talking to you from California

  1. Balanced conversation on impact of artificial intelligence, and how we value and measure knowledge to enable teams to do the best work. With everything happening today, what topics are we talking about that are critical for long-term success?
  2. What are things should AI, design intelligence, and evolving leadership be focused on more?

MT: Couple of different reasons and why design intelligence

  • From my practicioner perspective, it’s that field has been unstable for several years
    • With better knowledge management and better design intelligence could have soft-landings for practicioners as they move through organization
  • Think constantly in state of working towards enabling maturity, but with re-orgs hard to keep eye on ball
    • Tools would allow use to focus on main goals

BT: Reason tools aren’t embraced is due to fear, and starting from place of fear and lack of understanding, and something not taking over way it works.

  • Need to embrace in comfortable way. To create future we want, need to learn to embrace technology

JA: Double-down on what Briana said, and rejecting technologies and approaching them apprehensively has to do with framing

  • Use of ‘intelligence’ caused people to read more than what is there
  • Working with these things help us do things like keep knowledge organized at scale
  1. How do we keep growing leaders if they are uncomfortable with AI and nervous about their future in it?

BT: Mixed bag of people embracing it, and keeping outside of it keeps technology human and outside of unbiased view of tech to provide extra feedback on utilization of tech

  • Users will be on spectrum

MT: Have more storytelling and success to see things in other to understand of impact in roles and more positive use cases

JA: Old enough to remember first laser writer on the market, and clear that new technology would change graphic design

  • Immediately after commercialization was explosion of crappy design— and feels like we are there with AI technologies
    • Incredible derivations of text and put to crazy uses that aren’t good right now
  • Projecting into it a lot of changes that will not pan out
  • Less fearful once it becomes clear that they are tools like what we had in past
    • Does require you need hands-on understanding of what tools can do
    • Whole fear thing is pervasive and frankly uninformed
  • Leaders should look for ways to get first hand experience directly with what tools can do for them
  1. Say in future, year from now, where most people know about knowledge intelligence and where do you see topics we talked about today, a year from now?

JA: Don’t think any of us can know as tech is disruptive and things don’t change

  • Few years from now is that eventually will figure out what things are good and not good for and will become part of infrastructure like Microsoft Excel or auto-correct

BT: Will be evolutionary change and would like to see more representation in space of like innovation of digital technologies and storytelling and different communities

  • Access to using technology

MT: Knowledge management and design intelligence. Hoping to have better tooling and infrastructure in place, and comes with design leaders and ability to react to and address business perspectives with data-driven approach and better tools

  • Contribute to defining better business objectives and holistically come back to org and push innovation and narrative on what’s happening
  1. More fearful of AI, because other things seems so chaotic? How do we have conversations on future technology when things seem so unstable right now?

JA: Big question, but don’t think can answer question directly. Strikes as issue of framing and perception of world

  • Will caution all of you to get involved hands-on with tool, and not just what you read in media
  • Worth calling out that it’s pretty clear that AI technologies encompasses broad umbrella of things like LLM
    • LLM have ability to do stuff people were doing before, and require less time for humans
    • But worth noting, field most transformed by this involves journalism and takes we read have negative tint
  • Yes, it’s important to have skeptical lens on as designers, but also to get first-hand involvement and not what you just read in media

BT: To make sure something like LLM is capturing stories of people, you need to interact with it

  • Recognize as something users wanted and embrace to unlock new level of creativity and enable access
  • Larger climate of world interesting paradox with embracing of new tech
    • The more we tinker, the more solutions with greater problems

MT: Will answer perspective and how I deal with it myself. Huge sci-fi nerd and look at all derivations with future visions

  • So many ways it can end up manifesting and fear coming from perspective of locked-in future
    • We are all actively involved in figuring out future right now. So participate and be present in figuring out solutions
    • Break down to what we are doing right now and next thing to incorporate
    • Read more sci-fi
  1. Fear connected with misuse or abuse of challenges of AI from accessibility, equity, and ecological sustainability?

BT: At Adobe observing product equity team to look at and address risk and measurement for Generative AI as something bigger than us, and how much impact it has and impact on gender, bias, and race.

  • Other orgs aren’t being deliberate so harmful experiences result
  • Need to call organizations out for lack of regulations so that they create guardrails
    • Underscoring participation

JA: Glass half-empty question in my view. As tool can be put to bad and good use

  • Designers help use these things for good.
  • For example have used LLM for far-better alt text for accessibility for things online
    • Steer how things used, by understanding what exact things are used for, and we can explore boundraries of technologies
  • Used for bad-ends

MT: Would add to say it would develop tools to track and manage risk and compliance more quickly and previously

  1. Lightning question: If we could take one thing from what we covered, what would it be?

MT: One thing is two bullets

  • One key thing to make point about is integrating with knowledge management and business intelligence and move into field
  • Craft areas adjacent to us, which we can leverage for more stable practices

JA: Transition from laser-writers and getting into space would require tens of thousand dollars and these technologies are not free, but very good learning tools, and should have familiarity with things at a hand-on level

  • Get involved and get hands on with it can and cannot do as tool and design material
  • Tinker with AI to write better slack messages

BT: Take away provocation for future about HMW imagine more representative future and tools to realize it