Listen to the Designing with AI 2024 conference speakers on the Rosenfeld Review podcast
May 15, 2024AI as Infrastructure with Dan Hill
Dan Hill is the director of the Melbourne School of Design at the University of Melbourne, and author of Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary and Designing Missions. And he’s the opening speaker at the inaugural Designing with AI 2024 conference, where he’ll be presenting “Designing for the Infrastructures of Everyday Life”.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- The many facets of infrastructures
- How AI is currently being used and how it might be used in the future to support our infrastructures
- Why ride-sharing is not exactly an AI model worth repeating
- Why the Japanese and Finnish models work well in those environments but aren’t necessarily transferable to more diverse cultures
- Why quality of life will only improve with a more holistic, integrated design approach
Reflection in Action with Jodi Forlizzi
Jodi Forlizzi has taken an unusual path to get where she is today. With an art degree from the University of Arts in Philadelphia, she began working as a technical illustrator at the University of Pennsylvania. Transitioning into UX design as the internet expanded, she pursued a Master’s in Interaction Design at Carnegie Mellon University where she is now a professor. Jodi’s work focuses on responsible AI and diversity in computer science. Her talk at the upcoming Designing with AI 2024 conference will explore the evolving role of AI in design processes and products.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode
- How Jodi went from a Master of Fine Arts degree to working on responsible AI at Carnegie Mellon
- Why designers are needed in all phases of AI development
- How careers morph as technologies develop and become obsolete
- Lessons from history and the “friendly vending machine”
- Why solving for “Drunk Island” problems is usually more helpful than chasing a loftier issue
Ethan Marcotte on the Tech Industry, Unions, and AI
In a time of massive layoffs across the tech industry, and with the inevitable advancement of AI, is it time for tech workers to organize — as in, unionize? I know, I know. You thought unions were for 1950’s factory workers. Not so. Ethan Marcotte, author of You Deserve a Tech Union (and coiner of the term “responsive web design”) thinks it’s high time for tech workers to protect themselves by coming together and deciding what’s most important to them as a collective. Ethan will bring his perspective on tech workers and how they’re being impacted by AI to the upcoming Designing with AI virtual conference.
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- What’s attractive about unionizing for tech workers of the 2020s
- What tech workers would change if they could
- About tech walkouts and unions that have already happened
- Helpful resources for starting conversations with coworkers
- The potential relationship among AI, reskilling, and worker unions
