I learned that design is more than just screens and buttons. Artificial intelligence is now in many products and our jobs have changed. Not only do we have to make products easy to use, we have to shape the way people think, feel and behave. This gives us a lot of power, so we have to be careful.
One of the big responsibilities is to ensure clarity in AI. AI may seem magical because it works in the background. If people don’t know what the AI is doing, they can be confused and even harmed. For example, if AI is showing people something or telling them what to do, they should know why it’s happening. We need to make this clear to users in a simple, honest way.
We also need to design it carefully so that everyone is involved. Sometimes AI isn’t for everyone – for example, it may not be able to understand certain voices, faces or languages. We should take this into account from the start, rather than trying to fix it after the fact. When we use AI to track people or advise them, we should ask if it’s really going to help them, or just make them stay longer or buy more.