Welcome to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or what the World Economic Forum calls the "fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres." One aspect of it, Artificial Intelligence, is poised to change our lives dramatically. In this ongoing series, we will explore what the impact of AI will be on us as humans and designers. Our first installment, by Rob Girling, takes a look at what makes the stakes higher than ever before. Already, artificial intelligence is all around us, from self-driving cars and drones to virtual assistants and software that translate or invest.

We recently spoke to FastCo Design about how design jobs would evolve. The article included excerpts from Rob Girling's exploration on how Artificial Intelligence will impact design. Would it replace or augment human capabilities? In the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about how AI will impact our future as individuals, as designers and society. A very simple way to examine if AI algorithms will displace designers (or any profession) is to understand the degree to which that occupation can be easily codified or reduced to a set of reliable patterns, steps or models.