Design and AI symposium 2024
Embedding the Magic and the Real
Almost everyday for the last couple of years we are being surprised by the hype and the latest magical innovations of artificial intelligence. Initially this AI magic seemed far away from the reality of most design practitioners and researchers. The magic was not yet to be designed, or in overly shiny, or extremely dark fictions and scenarios.
However with experience, improved performance, and availability of tools the magic of AI is now becoming more firmly and deeply embedded into the reality of everyday design.
Join us in the fall of 2024 during Dutch Design Week, on October 22 and 23, where for two days of keynote presentations, talks and workshops we will explore where design is and where it is going in this summer of AI.
Register now!
64 EUR early-bird event ticket
Limited supply. Use promo code "early-bird" on check-out for a 15 Euro discount on the regular ticket price.
79 EUR regular event ticket
99 EUR regular event ticket + e-ticket for DDW
NL: Bij aanmelding gaat u ermee accoord dat wij uw gegevens delen met Dutch Design Foundation t.b.v. bezoekers registratie voor de DDW Mission Days. EN: By registering you agree that we share your data with the Dutch Design Foundation for the purpose of visitor registration for the DDW Mission Days.
Programme
In this 3rd Design & AI symposium we wonder:
- Where is design in embedding the magic of AI into the everyday reality?
- Where is design in embedding a sense of reality into the magic of AI?
- Is design going to disrupt the magic of AI? Will reality disrupt the magic of AI?
- Is AI going to generate the magic of design? Will design generate the reality of AI?
We have prepared a wonderful programme over two days:
The programme will be updated as new details emerge, stay tuned.
Symposium Day 1
October 22, 2024
Location: TU/e Campus, tba.
Day 1 starts in the afternoon with a welcome and our first keynote, we continue with break-outs and close with networking drinks.
12:30 Arrival with Coffee
13:00 Welcome to the Symposium
13:20 Keynote talk: Savannah Kunovsky
14:20 Breakout sessions 1
15:40 Breakout sessions 2
16:45 Wrap-up & Town Hall
17:30 Networking Drinks
Symposium Day 2
October 23, 2024
Location: NatLab, Podiumzaal
Day 2 starts with two keynote talks, we continue with break-outs and close with lunch.
08:45 Arrival with Coffee
09:15 Welcome to the second day
09:25 Keynote 2: Tobias Revell - Arup
10:15 Keynote 3: Bas van de Poel - Modem
11:00 Break & Switch rooms
11:15 Breakout sessions (tba.)
12:30 Lunch
Breakout sessions 1
October 22, 2024
Evolving Perspectives on AI and Design
In this session, panalists will share their different perspectives on AI and its potential for design. They will discuss creative methods to ensure contestability, experiments that go beyond human capabilities, and explorations of technological architectures and aesthetics. The session will take us on a journey through design, philosophy, and ethics with short talks followed by a shared discussion.
Interactive Session: AI and Education (tentative)
How will AI change our education practices? What do we need to doing? Are we afraid of the right things? What are the magical opportunities. This session is about surfacing the important questions, sharing ideas, hopes worries and thinking collectively about the potentials and pitfalls of AI and Education.
Introduction to Feminist Generative AI
In this interactive session, we’ll take you through some of the ideas around feminist generative AI - how can we develop GenAI with greater ethical integrity, tailored to benefit those with less societal privilege, and aligned with the values and needs of marginalised communities, using technology as a tool for empowerment and social justice. We will demonstrate that feminist principles help design better AI for everybody.
Breakout sessions 2
October 22, 2024
Exploring the margins of the magic with Cristina Zaga, Savannah Kunovsky, Tobias Revell
We see wonderful possibilities being discussed around AI, and we see prophecies of doom. Somewhere in between, there’s a space where actual AI touches actual people. Avoiding the usual frenzy of doom or utopia around AI, we explore with our panelists how to question the meanings and normative understanding of AI while grappling with digital materialities? How to explore new spaces of creative and social liberation through AI while involving communities and policy makers to co-create AI for planetary flourishing?
Interactive Session: AI and Creativity (tentative)
How can we be more creative with AI? Where does it stimulate and inspire us? Where do we have to worry about losing autonomy, practice, skills or criticality? Are we all becoming curators not curators and does that matter? This session is about surfacing the important questions, sharing ideas, hopes worries and thinking collectively about the potentials and pitfalls of AI and Creativity.
Workshops
October 23, 2024
Unpacking the AI Act for Designers by Marie Therese Sekwenz
The EU’s AI Act has just come into force, aiming to support the safe creation and deployment of AI systems by regulating the risks involved. It can be confusing to navigate - it has its own terminology, and it spans a level of applications and risks from realtime facial recognition and social socring to video games and spam filters. In this session we will talk through the key parts of the act in an accessible and practical manner, and then help to unpack what it might mean in specific situations in an interactive discussion.
Industry Perspectives Session
In this session, we present perspectives from three different industry partners working with AI: IBM, Philips and Clever Franke. Each will give a 15 minute presentation about their lessons from the front lines of AI deployment, with some time for questions after each talk.
Digital Society - TU Design United
This session explores the evolution of Digital Future through a selection of diverse and highly interactive artifacts that examines the skills, agencies and concerns that are currently crucial and, even more, will become elemental as the Digital Future evolves.
Speakers
We have three keynote speakers confirmed. The keynotes are spread over the two days and lead into the break-out sessions.
Savannah Kunovsky
Managing Director, IDEO
Savannah leads organizations in creating the next generation of technology. Her work spans ecosystems – AI/ML, XR, robotics, the future of the internet, new hardware, and more.
As Managing Director of IDEO's Emerging Technology Lab, Savannah guides teams in developing breakthrough products and strategic futures for global clients like Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Sony. Her past work includes pioneering emotion AI for mental health with Dr. John Gottman and co-founding Moringa School, a chain of tech education schools in Africa. She began her career as a software engineer.
Savannah has spoken at places like SXSW, Fast Company Innovation Festival, the MIT Media Lab, and Harvard. She’s delivered international keynotes, created interactive emerging technology museums, and published numerous articles that illustrate the future of tech.
Her work has been recognized by MIT, Forbes, and the World Economic Forum. She serves on the board of Duke’s Design & Technology Innovation Master’s program.
Tobias Revell
Design Futures Lead at Arup
Tobias Revell is an artist and designer, sort of. Spanning different disciplines and media his work addresses the urgent need for critical engagement with material reality through design, art and technology. Recent work has looked at the idea of technology as a territory, how and through which tools futures are imagined, rendering software and the futility of computing nature, video games and the occult and supernatural in pop culture discussions of technology.
He is Design Futures Lead at Arup and formerly Programme Director of Graphic Design Communication at London College of Communication, UAL and founding director of design research consultancy Strange Telemetry and a founding member of Supra Systems Studio. He is also currently just over one half of research and curatorial power-brand Haunted Machines. He is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education and Academy and is currently undertaking a PhD in Design at Goldsmiths about the intersection of computer graphics and so-called artificial intelligence through critical practice.
He holds a BA Hons. (1st) in Design for Interaction and Moving Image from the London College of Communication and an MA in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art from which he graduated in July 2012.
Bas van de Poel
Modem
Bas van de Poel is co-founder and Innovation Director at Modem, a digital design studio in Amsterdam. This agency is both a think tank and a design studio and works on behalf of Nike and Snapchat, among others. Augmented reality, virtual reality and ‘immersive’ environments play a central role in the projects. Bas is currently working on an exhibition about the ideal city in the Barbican Centre in London.
Bas is affiliated with top universities such as Berkeley, MIT and Harvard and Space10, the design and innovation lab of Ikea of which he was also creative director for many years. And Bas is also a designer himself; he is behind the design of the leading Dekmantel Festival.
Information
The Design & AI Symposium on October 22 and 23, 2024 is an annual event connecting the design and AI communities. Since 2022, we invite international keynote speakers, academics to host workshops and panels, and a broad audience to engange with all things new in Design and AI.
Previous editions: [2023] [2022]