System Bits: March 20

Design has consequences Carnegie Mellon University design students are exploring ways to enhance interactions with new technologies and the power of artificial intelligence. Assistant Professor Dan Lockton teaches the course, "Environments Studio IV: Designing Environments for Social Systems" in CMU's School of Design and leads the school's new Imaginaries Lab. "We want the designers of tomorrow to think about the overlap between the human world and AI. Many of our students are going to go work for companies like Facebook or Google, and they're going to be making decisions that might seem very small in the moment -- what text do we put on a button, how easy do we make it for someone to do this thing or that -- but those decisions are going to impact people's lives. We want them thinking through how their design has consequences."