Human-Centricity is not Human-Centric Enough: What’s Next for AI Powered Service Design?

Human-centricity has long been a fundamental value of service-design. In the last decades it became the de-facto design philosophy for the digital age, and for good reason: it helps us design things that work well, solve problems and cater to our needs in a much more “human” way.

However, I want to propose an update to this notion. Whereas traditional human centricity sees the user (i.e. the individual human subject) as separate from what they are using (i.e. an app, a chair, a glove), I see humans as continuous with their tools. It is not just a matter of our designs “influencing” us. Our designs design us. And with the dawn of AI, humanity is on the verge of a radical design update.

As we design our worlds, our worlds design us in return

I will use this article to talk about two things: first, how technology has historically designed societies by creating the specific conditions for their development (elaborating on the work of Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan and Australian design philosopher Anne-Marie Willis).

Secondly, I want to address what this means for design as it begins to deal with AI. I claim that AI is going to force designers to change how they conceptualise…