Designing with power in the age of AI
This video is featured in the AI and UX skill growth playlist and 1 more.
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
People rarely ask for power explicitly even though it is vital in career and tech contexts.
-
•
Power can be meaningfully understood through a framework of consent, consultation, and control.
-
•
Control is necessary not only for individual agency but also for empowering communities.
-
•
Many tech harms (harassment, exploitation, scams) were foreseeable but not prevented due to lack of power to intervene.
-
•
The hiring of Daniel Penny by Andreessen Horowitz symbolizes extreme and troubling uses of cultural power detached from expertise.
-
•
Big AI platforms frequently violate consent and control, generating user anger and distrust.
-
•
Burnout in tech usually stems from moral injury—failing to affect meaningful ethical change—rather than workload.
-
•
Design, particularly user-centric design, is a superpower that distributes power by embedding consent, consultation, and control.
-
•
Historical design movements like the Web Standards Project show that grassroots collective power can overthrow corporate monopolies.
-
•
Community-driven, purpose-specific AI tools like Corridor Digital’s open-source software provide hopeful models for ethical design and power sharing.
Notable Quotes
"Everyone has power. The only question is whether they know it or not, and whether they know how to use it."
"The most basic level of power is consent — did you choose to be in this situation or use this product?"
"Being consulted means people want agency and a degree of power in their experiences, not just passive consent."
"Control is the prerequisite for communities to form connections and have agency collectively."
"Many predictable harms in social media, gig economy, and Web3 were foreseen but not prevented because design lacked the needed power."
"Burnout comes from moral injury, not from working too hard or long hours."
"Big AI easily violates every part of the power framework: no consent, no consultation, no control."
"Design is a radical act that democratizes power by consulting people and giving them control."
"The Web Standards Project was just a group of regular people who banded together to wrest control from Microsoft for the good of users."
"When you have something grounded in community, it becomes easier to ask for power because you’re sharing it together."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"A social contract is what we expect of each other when we're in need."
George AyeDesigning a New Social Contract
June 25, 2026
"Silence is complicity. Inaction is support."
Denise Jacobs Nancy Douyon Renee Reid Lisa WelchmanInteractive Keynote: Social Change by Design
January 8, 2024
"Optimizing something for ease of use does not mean best for the user or humanity."
Sheryl CababaLiving in the Clouds: Adopting a Systems Thinking Mindset
June 6, 2023
"One of the most important questions before starting is what tools do I have to work with."
John DonmoyerShipping your code generation experiments to production
June 11, 2025
"Are you creative? Such a loaded question, isn't it?"
Dr. Karl JeffriesThe Science of Creativity for DesignOps
January 8, 2024
"If you have a design ops team, they will be the ones managing the design ops roadmap, but if not, it falls back to people with the mindset coordinating amongst themselves."
Peter BoersmaHow to Define and Maintain a DesignOps Roadmap
October 3, 2023
"The Web Standards Project was just a group of regular people who banded together to wrest control from Microsoft for the good of users."
Anil DashDesigning with power in the age of AI
June 10, 2026
"Onboarding often felt like trial by fire—go to the meeting and hope you understand something."
Louis Rosenfeld Lashanda Hodge Senongo Akpem Chris HodowanecBecoming a Civic Designer: Making the Move from Private to Public Sector
November 17, 2022
"User journeys are the bedrock for deciding which data to collect and measure."
Mackenzie Cockram Sara Branco Cunha Ian FranklinIntegrating Qualitative and Quantitative Research from Discovery to Live
December 16, 2022
