Responsible Design in the Age of AI

The rapid rise and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) often sparks debate about its potential to replace human jobs and transform society beyond our control. However, as humans we have the power to set the course of AI’s impact with how we engage with and create digital products. Here is my approach and experiences from working on Founderland’s Pitch Ai Mentor (PAM), an AI-powered interactive pitching experience that helps women of color founders develop their skills, counter biases, and succeed when pitching their next big idea.

Looking past the hype

Every few years a new wave of hype reaches out of the tech world and into the public consciousness. In the past few years it has been cryptocurrency and metaverses. There are good reasons why both the crypto and metaverse hypes ultimately disappeared, the core benefits to people didn’t materialize at scale. (This is not to say there is no use at all, just that the hype has moved elsewhere due to lack of universal appeal). Will AI hype run the same course? This still remains to be seen, with AI’s impact so far being mixed results. 

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AI’s greatest potential is likely to be the next accelerator of efficiency, allowing people to do more with less time. Recent demos, which notably are still not live yet, also show great potential for enhancing accessibility for those with visual impairment, as seen in some of the latest OpenAI ChatGPT-4o demos.

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However when implemented poorly, it’s clear that AI is a detriment to society, as seen via research reports that dig into how AI-powered transcription tools used in hospitals invents things no one ever said. Beyond misleading and harmful, there is also the issue of privacy. Large Generative AI offerings join algorithms in being “black-box models”, whose workings are unclear to the general public while, at the same time processing huge amounts of public and private data. Further beyond that, are the threats of job losses and increased inequality that could come from increased efficiency within the current systematic structures of society. For example, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that around 40% of jobs worldwide are at risk of being replaced or drastically changed by AI.

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How the next few years of AI development in products and services will play out, and whether it will be a net benefit or detriment to society, remains to be seen. Do we even have a say in how this turns out? Yes, I believe we do. As humans, I believe we have the right to demand that AI makes the world better, not just the rich richer. As designers, who play a part in creating the future, I also believe it’s our responsibility to use AI in a way that shapes a fair future for everyone.


Working with AI

As an Experience Designer creating digital products and services, its common place on projects to develop new and relevant solutions for users. The most frequent form of progress in this area is innovation leveraging new technology to achieve someone’s intended outcome quicker or in a completely new way. With the current wave of AI excelling at generative tasks, this unlocks new opportunities which simply weren’t possible before. Summarising, comparing, making alternatives: these are all things Generative AI does well.

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But just because something does another thing well, isn’t reason enough that we should be using these new AI possibilities. Reason needs to come from an insight into a human need. This is because I believe we should use AI to serve humanity, the environment, and society—all in a sustainable way. No technology for technology's sake, it must exist for humans first, always solving real world problems. 

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To ensure I create with this responsibility in mind, I’ve developed a checklist of thought starter questions that I answer when creating experiences with AI.

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Founderland PAM: an AI
case study

As a non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting women of colour entrepreneurs in Europe, one of the programs Founderland runs is Compass: a hands-on course helping founders develop their skills, counter biases, and succeed when pitching their next big idea. Due to the program’s hands-on nature, its reach is limited by the number of placement slots per season. But with less than 0.5% of venture capital (VC) funding going to women of colour founders, Founderland wanted to make a bigger impact than its current reach.

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I worked as part of a multi-disciplinary team at R/GA that partnered with Founderland to help them reach more people, resulting in the launch of PAM: Pitch Ai Mentor. A web-based AI-powered pitching experience that offers a safe-space for founders to practise their pitch. Founders can present their pitch to a set of virtual investors, built on common investor archetypes and powered by AI, getting instant feedback on how they performed across a variety of categories. 

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During development of this experience we explored many variations of AI-archetypes, each with different ways of working with the founder and within the interface. To overcome limitations of current AI (output quality and biases) we developed an interface and interaction model that mirrored the pitch room, but with repeatability and learning key focuses. The AI-archetype that is closest to where we landed is like a Coach: a style of assistance that helps people practise through repetition, helping them become better by challenging them positively, without replacing anyone’s role in the existing pitching ecosystem.

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PAM is currently in beta testing within the Founderland community, with the goal of supporting over 2,000 women of colour entrepreneurs in Europe by the end of this year. For more information, visit the Founderland PAM website or R/GA's website.

Founderland PAM: an AI case study

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While this is only one of probably thousands of AI projects launched in the last year, it does accurately reflect my hopes that technology progression can lead to a better future for everyone. 

So go out there and define how you want to work with AI. Try starting with my five thought starters and use your skills as a designer, or your agency as a human, to create the world that you want to see.

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Disclaimer

In line with my above ideas of responsible AI use in design, I think it is only right to be clear and transparent about the role AI played in creating this article. AI was used as a research partner, helping me find sources of information and explore potential points of view. AI was also used as an editor, providing spelling and grammar checks across early and final drafts. AI wasn’t used to ideate the structure of the article or write any of the content within.



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Responsible Design in the Age of AI

Looking past the hype

Working with AI

Founderland PAM: an AI case study

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