Aidan Walker

My theme for the Design Shenzhen 2025 Technology and Creativity Conference, held in Shenzhen 18-21 September 2025

Machine intelligence is the most powerful and game changing factor in design since ‘computer-aided design’ arrived in the 1980s. At that time, use of computers in design was revolutionary; now tech does not ‘aid’ design, it is completely integrated. The message used to be: ‘If it’s not sustainable, it’s not design’. Now the message is: ‘If it’s not machine-enabled, it’s not design’ – and, of course, digital technology is now underpinning sustainable design as much as it is any other form of practice.

The key factor for thought leaders way out in front of the dizzying competitive race to develop ever more sophisticated forms of Artificial Intelligence is what it means to be human. Will machines replace us? Will machine creativity overtake human creativity? What exactly is creativity and where does the Big Idea come from? What about machine ethics as opposed to human ethics? Jony Ive, the fabled designer of the iPhone, limits his children’s access to social media and is working, says Wired magazine, with design icon Marc Newson on a product that uses AI to create a ‘computing experience’ that is less socially disruptive than the iPhone (note the phrasing – a ‘computing experience’).  Fuseproject founder Yves Béhar, another major influence in this advanced thinking, doesn’t see the attraction. ‘I find the efforts in using AI for our daily communications and social media … only serve the attention economy,’ he says. It isn’t contributing to society.’

All of which leads us to the major issues of Technology, Creativity and Design that we tackle in Design Shenzhen’s first-ever groundbreaking design / tech conference. We go back to the late ‘80s and ‘90s when ‘human-centred design’ was gaining traction; the idea that the things we design should conform to our behaviour, as opposed to modifying our behaviour to suit the things. The modern AI version of that idea is computers that enhance and amplify our humanity rather than degrade or sideline it.

Computing is no longer a tool; computers are now designers. But human creativity, the practice of design by humans for humans, comes from the soul, from the heart, with love. This is what computers will never do.

The key questions are the ones we ask at the Design Shenzhen Conference ‘Digital Design for Humanity’. As for the answers – no guarantees. But this is definitely the best place to start.

©Aidan Walker, Design Shenzhen / Design Shanghai Conference Director