The Real Impact of AI on Service Design / Pablo Fernández Vallejo / Ep. #221

AI won't take over your job...

An 8-year-old girl with AI will!

Don't believe me? Check ou this video which was making the rounds on LinkedIn a while ago.

In the video a young girl coding a Harry Potter quiz game with the help of AI. In a matter of minutes.

It's a funny and striking example of where things are heading – or should I say, where they already are.

It'd be naive to think service design won't be affected.

But the current conversations about AI's impact often lack depth, nuance, and practical examples.

We don't seem to get much further than: "AI is good" or "AI is bad."

What are we even talking about when we say "AI"? We need to unpack it. Go beyond the surface.

Fortunately, our guest for this episode has done some of the heavy lifting for us.

As an educator at one of the leading design institutes, Pablo Fernández Vallejo has to live in the future.

He's always thinking about the skills future professionals will need in 4 years' time when they graduate. And of course, being able to make full use of AI is high on the list right now.

So in this episode, we sit down and talk about big questions like: Do we need to become AI experts ourselves, or should we focus on further developing our critical thinking skills? What are the risks and opportunities of bringing AI into the design process? What are the tasks that we can safely outsource to AI and which ones should we be more careful with.

So, whether you're an AI skeptic or optimist, I feel this conversation will challenge your thinking and help you make more informed decisions moving ahead.

A thought-provoking question in this episode is what will happen to our professional identities when AI starts to blur the boundaries between disciplines. It's not a question of if it will happen, but how quickly.

Curious to hear your thoughts, so make sure to leave a comment on below.

Enjoy and keep making a positive impact.

~ Marc

--- [ 1. GUIDE ] ---

00:00 Welcome to Episode 221

04:00 Grandparents' influence on AI perspective

06:00 Over-represented large language models

08:30 AI with a bias

11:00 Designing at the age of AI

14:00 Current state of designing with AI

17:30 Automation vs. Augmentation

19:30 AI’s Impact on Students

26:30 AI Possibilities vs. Limits

29:00 AI & Expertise Balance

30:00 Calculator analogy

32:30 AI & Service Commoditization

35:00 How AI impacts non-digital services

38:00 AI power dynamics

38:30 Service design for ai

42:30 AI as an active participant

44:30 Gaps in the society

47:15 Questions we should be asking

53:00 Sustainability & AI

55:00 Learning about past mistakes

57:00 Tech development and society conversation

59:30 The future we can build

1:00:40 Resources

1:02:00 Questions to ponder

--- [ 2. LINKS ] ---

• https://www.linkedin.com/in/pablofernandezvallejo
• Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (Book)
• Pablo's talk on Impact of AI in Service Design
• Pablo's post-SDGC article on the state of the conversation
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