What Designers Could Learn From Lawyers, Doctors, And Priests
Designers working with AI must navigate a raft of moral dilemmas–and they need a code of ethics to do it.
Design today faces a new generation of problems that carry an entirely new ethical burden created by the impact of new technologies such as AI and ubiquitous surveillance. It didn’t used to be that way–a product’s ethical disposition was easy enough to see at face value. A toaster never had another purpose in life other than to toast bread. The lines were clean and simple.
Now, AI, surveillance, and what I call “dark interactions” are transforming even the most prosaic design task into one rife with potentially dark outcomes.
In response, designers have been making the case that we have an new obligation to act responsibly in the face of new ethical challenges–that we should be “agents of positive change.” Sounds like a good idea, right? But how exactly is this supposed to work? It’s time to look deeper into the subject–and to mine wisdom from professions with long-established ethical guidelines.
Toward A Design Code Of Ethics
I don’t think most professionals in the industry have anything resembling a conscious or formal plan for how they will…
