Design@Large: Designing AI; Shaping Human-Centered Futures

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to research labs or technical infrastructure—it is embedded in classrooms, creative practice, healthcare systems, communication platforms, and planetary-scale infrastructures. As AI systems move from experimental tools to everyday companions, decision-makers, and mediators of social life, the question is no longer whether AI will shape our future, but how—and by whom.

At the Design Lab, we approach AI not simply as an algorithmic achievement, but as a fundamentally human-centered design challenge. Intelligent systems must be technically robust, yet responsive to lived experience; powerful at scale, yet grounded in context; innovative, yet attentive to equity and responsibility. Across seven sessions, Design@Large in Spring 2026 brings together leading voices from research, industry, education, law, health, and the arts to explore how AI is designed, deployed, governed, and experienced in real-world settings. From generative AI in education and music to embodied intelligence in XR, from disability justice and communication to sustainable computing and Indigenous data sovereignty, and from personal AI companions to value-based care in health systems, the series examines AI where it meets people, institutions, and infrastructures.

Rather than treating AI as a purely technical system, we frame it as a site of negotiation among human values, institutional incentives, cultural norms, and material conditions. Each session pairs scholars, practitioners, and industry leaders to interrogate how design decisions shape agency, creativity, trust, access, and care at scale.

Design@Large is open to the broader public and livestreamed online, while also serving as a core seminar for over 100 undergraduate and graduate students at UC San Diego. Together, we ask: What does it mean to design AI responsibly? How do we ensure that intelligent systems amplify human capability without reproducing harm? And how can design guide AI toward more just, inclusive, and sustainable futures?

Creative AI is transforming how music and other cultural works are composed, produced, and circulated, reshaping relationships between artists, platforms, and audiences. This session brings together artistic practice, industry development, and legal scholarship to explore how generative tools influence creative agency, authorship, and ownership. The discussion considers how AI systems collaborate with creators, how intellectual property frameworks are adapting, and how cultural value is negotiated in algorithmic environments.

Nicholas Bryan

Orly Lobel

Shahrokh Yadegari

https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/97003490023?pwd=8qNOfraCP1Lfd5w4pqLjhbnaAQ74FP.1

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UCSD Design & Innovation Building Room 208, 9510 Innovation Lane, La Jolla, United States

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