Can Design Save the World? - SCOTT DOORLEY & CARISSA CARTER - Co-authors of Assembling Tomorrow - Directors of Stanford’s d.School

How can we design and adapt for the uncertainties of the 21st century? How do emotions shape our decisions and the way we design the world around us?

Scott Doorley is the Creative Director at Stanford's d. school and co author of Make Space. He teaches design communication and his work has been featured in museums and architecture and urbanism and the New York Times. Carissa Carteris the Academic Director at Stanford's d. schooland author of The Secret Language of Maps. She teaches courses on emerging technologies and data visualization and received Fast Company and Core 77 awards for her work on designing with machine learning and blockchain.  Together, they co authored Assembling Tomorrow: A Guide to Designing a Thriving Future.

“The way we understand the world and how the world actually works is just not mapped perfectly. That kind of leads to problems because we don't know exactly what we're doing in the world. We can't see all the repercussions of the things we create until later on. One silver lining about the technologies we're creating is that technologies like AI could be used to help us with this issue, with the fact that our mental models aren't exactly in line with how the world works. AI is actually very good at predicting and modeling outcomes. It could be used to understand climate change better so that we're able to understand it in a way that allows us to act. It could also help us predict the impacts of the things that we're making. So there's a bit of a silver lining in here, even though it can feel scary to be in a situation where your mental model and how the world works are not in line.”

“I worry that AI is changing my thoughts and can control my thoughts, and that used to sound really far-fetched and now seems sort of middle of the road. I guarantee in a year's time that will sound like a very normal concern. Social listening is very sophisticated. All of the data in the websites that we visit, the data trails that we leave out in the world, are tracking us—our locations, our behaviors, and our habits such that there are many sites out there that can predict exactly what we're thinking and feeling and feed us advertising content or things that aren't even advertising content that can change what our next behaviors are. I think that's getting more and more sophisticated. We have already seen our political elections affected by mass attacks on our social media. When that comes down to our individual agency and behavior, I think that's something we do need to be concerned about. The way that we as individuals can combat it is to be aware that it's happening. Really start to notice the unnoticed, and I still feel optimistic amongst this concern.”

www.scottdoorley.com
www.snowflyzone.com
https://dschool.stanford.edu/
www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/623529/assembling-tomorrow-by-scott-doorley-carissa-carter-and-stanford-dschool-illustrations-by-armando-veve/

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Image credit: Patrick Beaudouin