Distributed Design¶
This week we were exposed to Distributed Design, a fresh take on how to measure impact from different aspects taking into account social, ecosystem and regenerative viewpoints.
Day 1 - Mushroom model¶
During the first three hour seminar we learned about the updated Mushroom model, a framework that allows designers to understand interconnections between value, knowledge, power and making. My group chose Chat GPT-4 as a product to analyze using this framework. It was interesting to see how other groups opted for products or objects such as hair clips and bread which were very different in nature.
Starting with such a complex product from the start allowed us to have an orderly understanding of the potential impact chat GPT-4 can have not only on users but also to begin to comprehend the power structures that exist in the use of this product. An interesting point that arose in the conversation is how investors and tech leaders are asking for a six month hold on the development of this technology to begin to understand its impact since it is a technology that is rapidly evolving with little understanding of how it can impact industries or even the education sector.
Learning Skils Which skills did I need during the activity and how can I translate into something useful for me and my future?
During the activity I focused on developing soft skills such as active listening and also documenting everyone’s ideas while brainstorming was taking place. For the future, I would love to use the mushroom model at the start of any project or product idea as a team. It is good for collaboration and getting everyone to think about impact. To me, something new was separating power from money and from knowledge and starting to look at those dimensions separately to get a better sense of who is benefiting from a system and who might be left behind or even being taken advantage of (even if unintentionally).
Dynamics How was the dynamic inside the group?
The discussion within the group was quite interesting and it was amazing that everyone felt comfortable bringing in their own perspective. As a group, we agreed that we had picked a challenging prompt as an initial idea but it also led to some discussions that were interesting for all of us. We also learned new fun facts about Chat GPT like the broad list of competitors in the market.
Interactions Did the role I played influence my opinion?
In this exercise I played the role of jotting down everyone’s opinion. Being the one taking notes helped me prioritize and synthesize our groups ideas quite fast. For me one takeaway that I now have in regards to chat GPT is how it could eventually displace Google and understanding monopolies in search engines and now AI chatbots.
Day 2 - Reflection tree¶
During this second session we looked at impact with more nuance and complexity, starting to understand why it is necessary in the first place and also broadening our definition of what impact can look like. It was interesting to consider diverse angles, some more social (human) and others more related to sustainability and incorporating non-human actors.
Learning Skils Which skills did I need during the activity and how can I translate into something useful for me and my future?
I think it was interesting to sit down and self evaluate our projects in all of these dimensions. The specific questions within each category were particularly useful to understand what blind spots we might be having and to also gain more clarity in regards to which aspect we are currently prioritizing and which other aspects we might need to prioritize later. For instance, in the case of my project with Wen and Ariel we are working a lot to shift children’s perceptions but we might need to work on making the actual product more regenerative using recyclable materials or creating repair guides.
Dynamics How was the dynamic inside the group?
Me, Ariel and Wen were very aligned during our self evaluation and doing the initial activity as a group allowed us to look at opportunity areas we hadn’t thought of for our intervention during this trimester. We will see ways to include repair manuals and more eco-friendly materials during the last Fab Lab challenge week.
Interactions Did the role I played influence my opinion?
Yes, I think also contrasting my viewpoint with Marc, who is working with ceramics, helped us have an external viewpoint from someone who is not in the day to day of our Perception Board Project. This was particularly useful since he made a good pushback to evaluate how we can “walk our talk”, using ecology-based principles even in the product we are making children interact with.
Day 3- Values¶
This final seminar of Distributed Design we made some time to philosophize on specific values we wanted to prioritize. I chose to focus on “Justice” as I was particularly interested in how it is a complex value that seeks to balance accountability with forgiveness and also poses interesting questions around repair, reparations and compensations. I chose this value also because I feel it is important when working with gender-based violence to also find ways to assist survivors and seek some form of justice (if such concept even exists).
Learning Skils Which skills did I need during the activity and how can I translate into something useful for me and my future?
During the activity my group focused on having a meditative conversation, allowing ourselves to express how we feel and real life examples when we felt we were being treated in an unjust way. We interacted with magazine cut outs, glue and colored pencils.
Dynamics How was the dynamic inside the group?
It was interesting since Amanda brought magazines to make a collage cut out. We decided to let our creativity flow and use colored pencils and also write words down. It felt like a therapy session and I personally feel it made more sense to approach the value in this unstructured way rather than using a Powerpoint presentation.
Interactions Did the role I played influence my opinion?
I think proposing the value was great because I found that Carolina, Amanda, Wen and Sami were also interested in it. Paige posed an interesting question which is if nature has justice in itself or if it is only a human value and has no space in the natural world. I am still thinking of the question and don’t have any answers yet. However, it made me think of divine justice and how some people and religions associate natural disasters with divine justice and even punishment.