Every now and then I come across something that perfectly illustrates what I mean by a highly developed design consciousness. By that I mean an understanding that we live in a world—physical, digital, interactive, and experiential—that is largely of our own making. A world shaped by a praxis in which actors with agency give form to their intentions—manifesting what they imagine will be beneficial for themselves and those they care about.
This recent interview between journalist Anand Giridharadas and Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, is one such moment. I highly recommend watching it in its full one-hour arc. Not just because it shines a spotlight on the singular emergent technology most urgently in need of public understanding—but because it offers a lived example of design consciousness in action.
Hao’s insight, and Giridharadas’s probing, offer a lens through which we can see AI not simply as a technical innovation, but as a design challenge that lives at the intersection of power, our imagined humanity, and technical possibilities. The conversation invites us to ask the right questions: Who gets to create the future? Who benefits from the design choices being made (and who is hurt)? And what might it look like for communities, not just the most powerful actors, to become co-creators of the artifacts that shape our lives?
There’s a lot more I could say about the specific ways Hao and Giridharadas name the creative dynamics behind AI’s emergence, and the ethical stakes of its development. But I’ve got a book to finish, and time is precious. So, as one does these days, I turned to my custom GPT Muse to help translate my impressions into something blog-ready. I’d give it a “B,” but maybe that’s the tradeoff we make when we outsource our creative agency to tools that are a product of an alienated agenda.
Empire of AI and the Mirror of Design Consciousness
Listening to Hao, I found myself stirred not only by her critique, but by the clarity of her design consciousness. She understands that AI is not a product—it is a system, a set of choices, a mirror held up to our collective ethics. Her voice is one of those rare ones that doesn’t just warn; it invites. It asks us to notice: who builds the models, with what data, for whose benefit? What assumptions are embedded in their architecture, and what consequences radiate from them, like heat from a still-cooling engine?
In a moment that could so easily be colonized by convenience, Hao gestures toward conviviality. She lifts up examples where communities—not corporations—collect and steward their own data to train systems that reflect their values. This is not just ethical computing. It’s participatory design. It’s emergence. It’s exactly the kind of shift I’ve been writing toward in my own work: an awakening to our role as creators in a world where design is destiny.
What Hao’s work illuminates is the difference between designing things and designing systems. Between treating technology as a neutral tool and seeing it as a moral act. Between passive participation in someone else’s future, and the sometimes uncomfortable, always vital act of claiming agency over our own.
For those of us trying to nurture a more conscious form of creativity—to imagine futures that are not only more innovative, but more just—Empire of AI is a case study in both caution and possibility. It reminds us that design is never just about what we make. It’s about how we choose to be in the world.
And that’s why this conversation matters. Not just for technologists or ethicists, but for anyone who wants to reframe design as a practice of presence, relationship, and responsibility. We are not just users. We are co-authors of the systems that will shape what comes next. The question is: what kind of designers do we want to be?
Personal Note
When I first began thinking about design not just as a profession but as a way of seeing—and a way of being—it was this dimension of creative agency that drew me in: the possibility that we might become better stewards of the systems we inherit, and more imaginative midwives to those we birth. Hao’s work brings that possibility into sharp relief. It’s a reminder, for me and I hope for you, that we are not spectators to the age of AI. We are participants. Our task, then, is not simply to critique or to marvel, but to design—consciously, ethically, courageously—with the full weight of our attention and care.
This is what design consciousness means to me. And this is why I write.
You can also watch the full video version of this interview at The Ink’s website HERE.
