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FUTURE OF XYZ is a bi-weekly interview series that explores big questions about where we are as a world and where we’re going. Through candid conversations with international experts, visionary leaders and courageous changemakers- we provoke new thinking about what's coming down the pipeline on matters related to art & design, science & innovation, culture & creativity.
Future of XYZ is presented by iF Design, a respected member of the international design community and host of the prestigious iF DESIGN AWARD since 1953. The show is also a proud member of the SURROUND Podcast Network. For more information, visit ifdesign.com/XYZ.
00:00:04:00 - 00:00:32:02
Speaker 1
Hello and welcome to another new episode of Future of XYZ. We're now in season eight of Future of XYZ presented by iF Design and part of the Surround Podcast network. Really excited for this conversation which is so relevant to every conversation it seems in design, creativity, business, economics, politics today which is the future of human machine collaboration.
00:00:32:04 - 00:00:45:12
Speaker 1
And with us we have an expert in this as usual. Matt McElvogue is the vice president of design at Teague. I want to say welcome first, Matt, before I tell any more.
00:00:45:14 - 00:00:47:18
Speaker 2
Thank you. Yeah.
00:00:47:20 - 00:01:05:14
Speaker 1
and, Matt, I mean, you've you started as an intern at Apple. You have a bachelor in science in the University of Cincinnati in digital design, which marks your age a little bit, because that was not something that was under study when I was in school.
00:01:05:16 - 00:01:10:23
Speaker 2
But it's funny, it's kind of evolved since then, too. That title has also gone away, I feel like. But yes.
00:01:11:00 - 00:01:34:02
Speaker 1
It's pretty fascinating how this is all changing. You, like many, top designers in the design world, industrial design, especially where at Frog Design, before you jumped over to TV. and Teague is based in Seattle, Washington, but is globally renowned for solving complex challenges at the forefront of technology.
00:01:34:04 - 00:01:34:18
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me.
00:01:34:18 - 00:01:52:17
Speaker 1
Thanks so much for being here. I mean, we're going to start, as we always start every episode with defining the topic at hand. So in the context of your expertise as well as the conversation we want to have today, Matt, how do you define, you know, human machine collaboration.
00:01:52:19 - 00:02:23:13
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. yeah, it's it's a good one. If if human collaboration is about, you know, working together and negotiating roles with one another and there's sort of a certain level of baseline trust because you both know you have life experiences and all this kind of stuff, empathy mixed in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think human machine collaboration is about, and we think about this a lot in terms of like AI, autonomy, robotics.
00:02:23:13 - 00:02:36:24
Speaker 2
It's about orchestration of human judgment and machine capability towards a shared outcome. Right. So that's how we often think about it in so many words.
00:02:37:01 - 00:02:50:22
Speaker 1
I have to say, I love the word orchestration. It's something that doesn't come up a lot, but it's actually, a very important word. And as we talk about some of the work you do, I think it's it makes sense that that's your definition.
00:02:50:24 - 00:02:51:13
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:02:51:15 - 00:03:20:05
Speaker 1
I was really surprised, I have to be honest, in preparing for this conversation to learn that there's actually like, human machine collaboration is so ubiquitous apparently already in like the, I don't even know where, but just in general that there's an acronym HMC. I when we made this topic like you know, we danced around so many different, aspects of your all’s work and your expertise.
00:03:20:07 - 00:03:32:24
Speaker 1
I thought we came up with this very cool, unique idea. And then I find out that it actually has an acronym, can you share a little bit more about recent evolutions in what I guess is called HMC?
00:03:33:01 - 00:04:02:12
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think, we've been in the thick of it too. Right? So if I think recent evolutions, it's it's started out with, on the software side anyway, thinking through working with algorithms in a way. Right. Like the interface, a lot of the time when we're called in to help, we're not working. We're working with developers to help build a system on top of some API superpowers.
00:04:02:12 - 00:04:28:08
Speaker 2
Say it's work with AWS or something like that. And, and we're kind of I always say we're building a system for, like, normal humans who are I'll use the word muggles if you're a Harry Potter fan. that's often where we come in and, that's probably where we started to cut our teeth on, like the early stages of this evolution that eventually led to artificial intelligence, or AI, as people are calling it now.
00:04:28:10 - 00:04:50:00
Speaker 2
You know, we feel like, yes, let's call it AI, but underneath that it's it's working with agents and algorithms and LLMs to achieve a goal. Right. And that's probably one of the major evolutions is thinking through, kind of how you do that when a lot of the work that happens that you're not involved in is kind of invisible.
00:04:50:02 - 00:05:15:22
Speaker 2
So that's been one of the big things that we we've been in the middle of. And then I think, as you think about how that stuff manifests physically, be that, you know, you're in an autonomous cab ride or you're working alongside a robot that can move around like you can, we're also thinking through safety and intent and trust around those kind of physical manifestations of AI as well.
00:05:15:24 - 00:05:19:23
Speaker 2
So that's been the recent evolutions that we've been in the middle of.
00:05:19:23 - 00:05:46:18
Speaker 1
I think it's funny because I, I mean, I think what we all hear about, you know, in terms of this right now, certainly the last couple of years nonstop is AI and robots. The and you just use those as two perfect example. So I'm not surprised that those are the recent evolutions, you know. But what else constitutes kind of either the current and or near future of human machine collaboration?
00:05:46:20 - 00:05:53:22
Speaker 1
either beyond AI and robots or as you just broke down like the things behind.
00:05:53:24 - 00:06:20:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, yeah. Some of the details behind that, I think, Things that come to mind. Let me know if I'm dodging your question are trust. I think trust is a major thing. Right? Like, technological advancement around those subjects, not to keep leaning on those. It's taking such leaps that it's hard to kind of, trust right in, in those systems.
00:06:20:04 - 00:06:39:19
Speaker 2
And people can be a little bit, you'll take my car or you'll take my ability to control from my cold, dead hands around this thing. And I think if you're thinking as a good human centered designer, you're working out how to kind of get people not on board just for the sake of getting on board with some capitalistic endeavor.
00:06:39:19 - 00:06:57:15
Speaker 2
But you're looking at the reality of, like, these tools becoming a common part of how we do work and how we live our lives. And you're trying to work out what are the mechanisms for building trust in those systems. And, you know, there's societal challenges there and all kinds of stuff wrapped up in that. But I'm sure we'll get into that.
00:06:57:17 - 00:07:29:10
Speaker 2
Trust is probably a big one that comes to mind. A big part of it. another, and this is wrapped up in a whole sort of subject area that some people have referred to as emergent design. It's, it's not designing with outcomes in mind the way we've maybe traditionally designed. It's designing, where you for a world where you actually don't know what the outcome might be or what the interface might actually look like as far as layout on the screen and all that kind of stuff.
00:07:29:10 - 00:07:50:05
Speaker 2
And that's quite a fun space to start digging into, and you find yourself leaning on all kinds of other things that have always been part of the toolkit, but like sound and light and emotion all become kind of more important than they have in the last maybe, you know, 15, 20 years, which is exciting as well.
00:07:50:07 - 00:08:04:22
Speaker 1
It is because it's immersive. I mean, at the end of the day, emergent is not necessarily, the same as immersive, but, emergent is increasingly because of these tools that we now have and opportunities, it is increasingly immersive, it seems to me.
00:08:04:24 - 00:08:39:05
Speaker 2
Yeah, it becomes that it's part of that ubiquitous computing kind of conversation. Right. But, you know, I think I think therein lies all the opportunity here as well around this. You know, if I think of my most positive days about where AI and the future of human collaboration with machines will go. It's like, you know, there may very well be a world where as a designer, I'm designing, like, kind of the kit of parts and, and the tools and maybe thinking through sort of the rules that guide a system like what it won't do and how it, it will explain itself.
00:08:39:05 - 00:09:06:24
Speaker 2
How is it going to get in front of me without being kind of Clippy style, annoying and all this kind of stuff? And then the opportunity on the other side of that, as a human can bring like hyper personal, hyper contextual, situational, like information to it. And we can maybe we can maybe serve users in a way that, like, hasn't really been possible when you're trying to say it, serve, you're kind of leaning into like an 8020 rule.
00:09:06:24 - 00:09:26:12
Speaker 2
It's like we're going to cover like 80% of the use cases and do them really well, but it doesn't really make business sense to cover the other 20%. But really, everyone's got a bit of a 20% in the how they want to use tools. Right? So it's if we can create systems that will allow people to like, get exactly what they want out of an interface or interaction with a robot.
00:09:26:12 - 00:09:37:01
Speaker 2
I think, that's a really exciting future for accessibility and getting your job done the way you want to get it done. So that's me on my most hopeful day. We'll we'll keep the pessimism out of it.
00:09:37:04 - 00:09:40:12
Speaker 1
No, no we won't, because I'm going to ask you about it in a little bit, but I will.
00:09:40:13 - 00:09:44:19
Speaker 2
I thought you might actually, with the way I've seen you on other interviews.
00:09:44:21 - 00:10:07:22
Speaker 1
But I, I want to I want to stick with the optimism for a minute because, I mean, the work you do shapes these solutions and systems from very complex, high stakes environments. and they are kind of at the intersection as you just described of AI, autonomy, and kind of what is still human experience.
00:10:08:02 - 00:10:08:22
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:10:08:24 - 00:10:37:00
Speaker 1
When human machine collaboration works well. Right. And when it plays its role to its maximum potential today, obviously it's going to continue to evolve as you just said. What is like the number one benefit? Is it the personalization that you just said? Is it the seamless interface? Like what is the number one benefit that it brings to the design process or to the outcomes?
00:10:37:02 - 00:10:59:12
Speaker 2
to on the outcome? And I think it's when it's working at its best or, you know, where I, I guess my hypothesis is where, around where it has to go is it's, it's not trying to replace a coworker or like what you do, it might enhance what you do, but it's it's a tool or a it's another tool like other tools we've had.
00:10:59:12 - 00:11:26:03
Speaker 2
And I think when it's at its best, it's providing you sort of extra sensory capability or additional capability that you can't have with your eyes, ears, mind, mouth, you know. So I know that's a bit maybe vague, but I think that's when it's at its best. Right? And I look at Waymo recently released some data about how safe their vehicles really are compared to like other road usage.
00:11:26:03 - 00:11:45:00
Speaker 2
And it's kind of like when you see that data and they've been a partner of ours in the past. I'm, I was kind of rooting for them. But like when you see that data, it's like, man, how are we not like driving towards that as quick as we can for more of our road vehicles? Right. Because it's, it could just make such an impact on kind of where we're at.
00:11:45:00 - 00:12:09:08
Speaker 2
And I think when you look at the superpowers that are sort of added to the human role there, it can see around corners you can't see around. The more that, the more people get on the same page. And there's sort of regulation and shared, data there. Right? It's literally going to be able to talk to other vehicles, infrastructure and know precisely in those weather conditions how long it's going to take to slow down or stop and things like this.
00:12:09:08 - 00:12:27:09
Speaker 2
And we could have a future where we drastically reduce, like road deaths, right? So when I'm at my most optimistic, it's a tool that provides extra and extra sensory superpowers, beyond what we're capable of. Right. And that can enhance how we live our lives and do our work.
00:12:27:11 - 00:12:46:04
Speaker 1
I love that. And I think it's interesting because when I interviewed, one of our iF Design jurors in car design guy named Sam Livingston, I think it was in April, March or April, whatever it was. On the future of car design, which is fascinating. And he's been in this space for a long time. And I asked him about the future of course.
00:12:46:15 - 00:13:03:17
Speaker 1
And it was like, you know, it wasn't necessarily Waymo, but also like autonomous vehicles, like you don't have to park your car anymore. You go to the mall or to the supermarket and you jump out and the car, you know, drives itself around, like looking for a parking spot or just goes in like sit somewhere else effectively.
00:13:03:19 - 00:13:22:01
Speaker 1
And again, like, these are things like you don't need parking lots if that's the case because they can be elsewhere, they can be rotating like what it does for the landscape. So I think optimistically looking ahead, if we can, we can embrace it at every level, at systems level, it will be different.
00:13:22:03 - 00:13:26:16
Speaker 2
All those cascading benefits and changes could be super exciting or anything.
00:13:26:18 - 00:13:27:03
Speaker 1
They could be.
00:13:27:03 - 00:13:28:19
Speaker 2
That’s when I'm at my most optimistic.
00:13:28:20 - 00:13:47:06
Speaker 1
Exactly. And it’s systems level. I'm I'm curious because obviously, there's a pessimism also in all of this. I'm not going to talk about the environmental impact of all this AI because that and the data because that's I gave a talk at South By last year. This is a big passion point for mine, and it's a rabbit hole.
00:13:47:10 - 00:14:11:19
Speaker 1
So let's set it aside and just acknowledge it. But there is a strength in all of these human machine collaborations or interfaces that allow us to push forward in new scientific, computational, mathematical engineering frontiers. What are the liabilities and risks? And I mean, obviously, like I'd like to start with, like the human in the loop concept.
00:14:11:21 - 00:14:16:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, I think,
00:14:16:08 - 00:14:44:00
Speaker 2
Well, when I go to liabilities and risks, it's, it's hard not to sort of jump to the way I want, the way AI has manifesting today to change. Right. And we try to imbue in some of our work. So I think when there's a human in the loop still making kind of like a decision and they haven't transitioned to that, sort of like on the loop kind of piece of it, I think our ability and it almost needs to become how you teach kids in school from a very young age.
00:14:44:00 - 00:15:16:10
Speaker 2
It's like curation, discernment. focus in those moments where you're still required to make a decision. They become like so big, right? Especially in a mission critical environment. In a way that's actually it's when we worked on like interfaces for space stations, for example. It's like when you get too automated, you have to be really careful with how much redundancy and encoding you're doing in the moments of decision, because someone hasn't been doing the math and working the thing out the whole time.
00:15:16:10 - 00:15:32:09
Speaker 2
So like they're kind of coming in a little cold. So we do a lot of like, you know, I find myself referencing like scenes from a movie where two people have to turn a key, flip a plastic case. There's red outside of it, there's caution stripes outside of it. And then even then, it's not a quick button.
00:15:32:09 - 00:15:51:15
Speaker 2
It's like a button you gotta crank or something. It's like those kinds of design paradigms become pretty important to just make sure there's like checks on people. Right. So I think that's one of them. I think other ones are other ways that I think at least, like liability shifters at least. Well, maybe I'll say responsibility for designers shifts.
00:15:51:17 - 00:16:25:05
Speaker 2
And we're not currently involved in all these conversations. I don't think like human centered thinkers is is way upstream. It's like it's how do how do we get designers, or at least people that are thinking about the human implications of decisions involved upstream when it comes to like training data sets and things like this. Right. And if we're not doing that, I do worry that we are quickly approaching many news stories, like the old sort of Microsoft early AI becoming Hitler in a matter of minutes on the internet.
00:16:25:07 - 00:16:37:23
Speaker 2
I worry we're going to run into lots of those as companies try to use AI to do things. So I think there's like real liability and problems that we'll have to get into there. And I think design has a role to play as well in that stuff.
00:16:38:00 - 00:16:41:21
Speaker 1
I think design has a role to play in all of it, if we're lucky enough to be invited.
00:16:41:23 - 00:17:05:18
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I think that that might be one of the challenges we're we're looking at, too. It's and I mean, I'm a consultant, so I'm always working out how do you get in certain rooms. but you know, I think design as a whole will have to work out how to be a part of those conversations and feel the feel, honestly, the level of responsibility when you're in those moments, you know, it's not just about tech chasing technology and money and all these kinds of things.
00:17:05:18 - 00:17:14:24
Speaker 2
It's about right sizing and doing the right thing by by real humans at the end of the day. So I think that's all to come as it gets more serious for companies.
00:17:15:00 - 00:17:28:08
Speaker 1
I certainly hope so. Matt, I think, I want to geek out for a little bit, and get a little specific, but in kind of rapid fire way.
00:17:28:10 - 00:17:29:04
Speaker 2
Okay, let's do it.
00:17:29:05 - 00:17:46:03
Speaker 1
Okay, so you've led at Teague. You've led projects for the likes of Boeing and Axiom Space and Northrop Grumman, which of course, like its all like Southern California Aerospace and Defense, Intel, Qualcomm, Google, Microsoft and so many others.
00:17:46:05 - 00:17:48:15
Speaker 2
Yeah.
00:17:48:17 - 00:17:58:04
Speaker 1
I want to do a quick answer around like the opportunity for human machine collaboration in the following industries. So like as quick as possible. You ready for it?
00:17:58:06 - 00:18:12:09
Speaker 2
Yeah, go for it. Aviation. more hyper personalized experiences that make it feel less like you're on a greyhound in the sky.
00:18:12:11 - 00:18:14:10
Speaker 1
that's that's mic drop. I love it.
00:18:14:12 - 00:18:15:10
Speaker 2
A provocative one.
00:18:15:22 - 00:18:23:02
Speaker 1
I love it. No greyhounds in the sky. dogs or busses? telecommunications.
00:18:23:04 - 00:18:51:23
Speaker 2
telecommunications. I think, you know, it's exciting what we might be looking at from sort of a size of the pipe in the coming years and being able to provide people like emergency response or, you know, paramedics, police officers, firefighters, the sort of level of data enriched experiences that are maybe AI powered, we can give them to be better at their jobs is exciting, I think when it comes to sort of future of telecommunications, very specific thing.
00:18:51:23 - 00:18:55:09
Speaker 2
But something I've worked a little bit in and I think there's a lot we can do there.
00:18:55:11 - 00:19:07:04
Speaker 1
And it's not at all what I was expecting. And so I always love when that happens. It gives me, me food for thought too. And I'm sure all of our listeners and viewers. Autonomous mobility.
00:19:07:06 - 00:19:34:01
Speaker 2
you know, I'm excited about the future, where there's enough maturity in the market that we can get into more of V2X play so it’s vehicle to whatever. Right? So that be that infrastructure, competitive platforms, all this kind of stuff. And I think I think then you can really get into like what will feel like a big step change from where we're all right now, where everyone right now and Waymo are probably out ahead.
00:19:34:03 - 00:19:51:00
Speaker 2
They're all working on their own sort of walled garden. I think, you know, as things evolve, you'll get to a point where they can all communicate a bit more and there's some standards, and then we can get to like real safety leaps and all this kind of stuff. And what's exciting is they're already making a dent on those kinds of things.
00:19:51:00 - 00:19:53:18
Speaker 2
So that excites me. I think.
00:19:53:20 - 00:20:06:01
Speaker 1
I mean, I'm just going to interject with one question on that. I mean, they're doing it because it's beneficial to scale of the business. They're not doing it because the regulatory bodies anywhere have any grip on any of this?
00:20:06:03 - 00:20:12:21
Speaker 2
No. Yeah, 100%. I agree with that. And that's a whole that's tipping into that pessimism side that we'll get to later I think.
00:20:12:23 - 00:20:18:12
Speaker 1
Yeah. Sorry. It just always comes out. Manufacturing.
00:20:18:14 - 00:20:21:15
Speaker 2
manufacturing,
00:20:21:17 - 00:20:24:24
Speaker 1
Thinking like factories and warehouses, you know.
00:20:24:24 - 00:20:47:16
Speaker 2
Yeah. Makes sense. I think, there's all kinds of things that can be done. And there's big pessimism stuff here, by the way, around job security and future of jobs for humans. But, like, when it comes to labor and taking care, we already see it already with small Amazon Mouse style robots and things like this that are scooting around on the ground.
00:20:47:18 - 00:21:07:04
Speaker 2
But I think, like when it comes to that stuff replacing sort of human labor, and in that scenario, there's there's a lot of benefit to like what that costs someone's physical body over time. Right. And now we have to have other jobs for these people. And that's a whole part of it. But I think there's exciting stuff there.
00:21:07:04 - 00:21:25:13
Speaker 2
I think there's exciting stuff around. it's similar to what I was talking about in the telecommunications thing, equipping people that are on the front line with answers when they need them. Right. We help with companies all the time on future of you know, factory floor projects. And one of the biggest problems you hear company to company
00:21:26:11 - 00:21:58:07
Speaker 2
is the sort of how hard it is to get help when you run into something, and it has massive implications for the business, and it is not a great experience to go through as a front line worker, when you just want to help move things along and you can't get access to information. So AI has a lot to AI and sort of, compute has a lot to add there when all these systems are really band aided and kind of cobbled together and they're very disparate, you can kind of go over all of those walls and provide information.
00:21:58:07 - 00:21:59:18
Speaker 2
So I think there's lots of exciting stuff to happen.
00:21:59:18 - 00:22:04:11
Speaker 1
And then requires an upskilling of your workforce, which would be great because then those are higher paid jobs.
00:22:04:13 - 00:22:05:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, totally.
00:22:05:09 - 00:22:11:07
Speaker 1
Optimism. okay. Two more, three more. Sorry. medicine.
00:22:11:09 - 00:22:12:03
Speaker 2
Medicine.
00:22:12:08 - 00:22:16:11
Speaker 1
I know it's not really Teague's area of expertise, but what do you think?
00:22:16:13 - 00:22:54:20
Speaker 2
You know, that's a whole topic, but, the medicine, I think there's super exciting stuff happening with robotics in medicine. I think when we think about humanoid robots operating outside of a fence alongside people that can help us deal with shortages we have in staffing on that side. Right. And level of care you can provide. I think there's really exciting stuff that can happen around, like aging as it comes to medicine and getting people, giving people the opportunity to remain in dependent for longer, is a worthwhile goal in many cases.
00:22:54:20 - 00:22:57:15
Speaker 2
So I think there's lots of exciting stuff that can happen in medicine.
00:22:57:17 - 00:23:02:19
Speaker 1
Cool. military and defense.
00:23:02:21 - 00:23:24:21
Speaker 2
Military and defense. I think I'll talk like needs based and how that maybe excites me. it's, you know, I think the speed of decision that will have to be made with the kind of offensive threats that exist today, think drones and what we're seeing in Ukraine and how quickly that is evolving warfare and cyber, you know. Yeah, cyber.
00:23:24:21 - 00:23:49:16
Speaker 2
It won't be possible for humans to be in the loop, in the way they have been in the past. You'll be responding to too many threats. So we'll there's a lot of opportunity when it comes to humans on the loop partnered with, sort of more advanced technology, to, you know, defend, defend, us from, you know, attacks and sort of keep humans alive.
00:23:49:18 - 00:23:53:15
Speaker 1
I mean, we could just all be nice to each other and stop fighting, too. That'd be great.
00:23:53:15 - 00:24:01:01
Speaker 2
I know I, wrestle with that sometimes with some of our, subject areas, and and I, I realized that's not the way humans are wired. Unfortunately.
00:24:01:06 - 00:24:24:21
Speaker 1
No, it is not. and the last one is going to be, space operations, but I want to specifically drill in. Teague has been a long time participant in the iF Design award, which, of course is iF Design is the presenting partner of Future of XYZ. I also happen to be the managing director of the U.S. and head of Sustainability and Impact there.
00:24:24:23 - 00:24:45:01
Speaker 1
in my first year at iF, Teague came to my attention because you won an iF Design award, which is one of the most prestigious design awards in the world for two concepts, which also I loved, like that you put concepts in. And one of those concepts was an amazing train, like very visual. very interactive.
00:24:45:06 - 00:25:06:19
Speaker 1
But the other was, a lunar habitat for, I mean, a plant, a moon colony, basically. not to use the negative term of colony, but I mean, a landing site. What, what did you learn about HMC? Human machine collaboration through that project specifically, and where it's going?
00:25:06:21 - 00:25:25:17
Speaker 2
Yeah. you know, just to talk about that for a second, we often do those because, we want to take things we're learning in all the work we do that you can never talk about. Right. And and synthesize something out without risking any IP to kind of put that out in the world, to kind of provoke clients from a business development point of view.
00:25:25:17 - 00:25:48:06
Speaker 2
But also to like, share with design and highlight that this is a design opportunity. I think what we learned there is, you know, when you're when you're in that level of a hostile environment, right, where you can't be outside for more than certain amount of time, you can't be outside at certain revolutions because the sun hits with too much radiation and that kind of thing.
00:25:48:08 - 00:26:14:19
Speaker 2
Your level of partnership with machines and systems, it becomes like super heightened, right? Very critical. And, you know, as we've done work like that, I think, and I go back to like what they're not doing yet. Right? When it comes to interacting with this type of new technology, the amount of, sort of seeing the notes and the work that led to the answer becomes quite important, actually.
00:26:14:19 - 00:26:32:04
Speaker 2
Right. and we don't think that in the way to we're maybe interacting with AI right now, it's very invisible and it's almost like a super powered version of search. Right? It's but when you when you're in a mission critical environment, things have to be solved for or re approached or you have to know why a decision was made.
00:26:32:04 - 00:26:57:09
Speaker 2
And in our work that we've done on on the space side where we are leaning into anything happening autonomously, we find that that is really important. So it can't just be spin, spin, spin answer. It's got to kind of walk you through what it's doing and what a generic decisions it's making on your behalf. Right. So I think that's probably the big thing that we learned in sort of how human machine collaboration will evolve in that space.
00:26:57:11 - 00:27:16:08
Speaker 1
That's really cool. it's it's it's it's it's an area I love. We had the creative director at NASA on, a while ago. Very cool. it's, and the former CIO at NASA was one of my first guests, and it's it's all fascinating stuff, and it's moving very, very quickly. And the public and private sectors. Yeah.
00:27:16:10 - 00:27:42:01
Speaker 1
we're coming up on time a little bit, Matt. But one thing I do want to get into, is kind of your leadership of a design organization that is on this cutting edge. there's kind of two questions. I mean, it's a multidisciplinary global design firm. Teague. Obviously, Apple is the largest tech firm in the world, where you interned and started out, when you think about design and engineering work streams themselves.
00:27:42:06 - 00:27:54:09
Speaker 1
Right. Plus that human centered approach design that you talked about previously, how is human machine collaboration coming into play in your own work efforts, not just in the outcomes?
00:27:54:11 - 00:28:09:10
Speaker 2
Yeah, it I mean, I think the big thing is it helps us go faster. now that's always a dodgy thing to kind of talk about because the wrong people hear that and they think they think certain things. Right. It's very.
00:28:09:11 - 00:28:10:08
Speaker 1
Cheaper.
00:28:10:10 - 00:28:33:18
Speaker 2
Yeah. It's exactly it's hard to kind of separate that from like hyper capitalism, you know. So there I am with pessimism almost again. but it helps us go faster. it helps us sort of enable each of the disciplines with some of the other disciplines superpowers. Right. So, you know, we have animators that are world class kind of car commercial level photoreal animators at Teague.
00:28:33:20 - 00:29:04:04
Speaker 2
And then we have industrial designers and software designers. But giving them kind of the power to get something like further along around animation and doing it in like a really clever way. We've got some cool workflows that we're doing around design for robots, where we can take drawings. We're still pumping them through many different AI powered tools to get there, but we can then have like a set of illustrations, animate in a way that's really realistic to the limitations of the structure that we're designing.
00:29:04:04 - 00:29:24:01
Speaker 2
So like the actuator only has certain ranges and can only move in certain ways. And when we we do this kind of like multi-tool, process, we can really quickly see what these things are going to look like when they're moving. Right. It's not perfect. It's not going all the way to what one of our animators or an engineer in like a really detailed CAD piece of software would do.
00:29:24:01 - 00:29:42:06
Speaker 2
But it gets you pretty far pretty quick. So we can we can mitigate risk in some of the decision making process because, you know, at the end of the day, design as it comes to like thinking about the future, you're really it's a decision making process that mitigates risk, right? On behalf of companies and doing the wrong thing by the user.
00:29:42:06 - 00:29:59:00
Speaker 2
So it lets us try things faster, eliminate bad decisions, and and look at more variations on a, on a topic. and we're doing a lot there. Right. It's not stuff we talk about publicly too much, but it's it's definitely a part of every project. At this point.
00:29:59:02 - 00:30:35:13
Speaker 1
I don't think I've ever had, more self references to past episodes ever in an episode, but I think it's because it's this topic is so powerful and so ubiquitous to the design conversation at the moment. But, I was blown away at our trend conference last year in Berlin, at iF’s trend conference in Berlin last year, one of the speakers was the head of applied R&D at Foster and and Partners that, you know, Lord Norman Foster's architectural firm that does all sorts of cutting edge, engineering style, a great design work, a little controversial at times.
00:30:35:15 - 00:31:04:04
Speaker 1
And her whole team, including herself, are architects, mathematicians and computer scientists. like, that's they're all that thing, and they're using these kinds of tools in order to figure out, you know, light exposure or weight bearing, new materials, you know, life cycles among all sorts of other geothermal siting questions, etc.. And it was it was mind bending. And she came on the podcast not so long ago, to talk about it.
00:31:04:04 - 00:31:12:12
Speaker 1
And I mean, it, it's it's pretty amazing what we can now as humans do with data and robots.
00:31:12:14 - 00:31:21:02
Speaker 2
Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's exciting. It's, scary at times, but it's, it's fun space to kind of get to think about every day.
00:31:21:04 - 00:31:41:14
Speaker 1
Well, that leads me to I would have loved to keep going, but it leads me to my last question, which is also like the first one, always the same for every guest, Matt, which is what is your greatest hope for the future of human machine collaboration? In in, let's say, I mean say like 25 years, which is about roughly 2050.
00:31:41:16 - 00:32:11:21
Speaker 2
I'm thinking my son similar ages me at that point. I think my I'll dip into pessimism here. It's like my I think one of the things that makes it hard for people to get behind all this stuff in a major way, is that, we live in an age of kind of massive wealth disparity. Right? And if you look at it really nastily, it's like unrepentant greed on some level.
00:32:11:21 - 00:32:35:24
Speaker 2
Right? so I think, I think it's hard to trust in institutions if I lose my job to this stuff, like will I be taken care of and all that kind of stuff. So my hope for it is that generations after me, and I think from everything I see of them, they're kind of going this way. I'm a I'm of a pleaser generation, right?
00:32:35:24 - 00:32:58:04
Speaker 2
I want to please. And if my boss is someone that runs a company for the period of time I'm working with them, I want to do right by them in their company. Yeah. I'm millennial. Right? yeah, you got it. So I think the younger generations, what excites me about them is they they seem a bit more self-conscious in, in kind of like their worldview and like what they want from things.
00:32:58:04 - 00:33:27:02
Speaker 2
And I think they're going to be tested as they enter workforces and have to actually deal with money and everything else. But my hope is that by by 2050, that we have more of a balanced view of all of this tech and what it means, right? And that we are doing the right amount of something and we can balance the environmental impacts and, sort of, runaway, wealth disparity with the technology.
00:33:27:02 - 00:33:46:01
Speaker 2
Right. And do right by humans. So that's my hope. I'm kind of coming across like my generation have already lost that battle in some ways, but we're in the middle of the emergence of it. So hopefully younger generations will be able to take a different perspective and and sort of balance things out again. Right. Is my hope around it?
00:33:46:03 - 00:33:56:05
Speaker 1
Matt McElvogue of, of Teague in Seattle, Washington. Thank you so much for joining us on this very interesting and compelling episode of Future of XYZ.
00:33:56:07 - 00:33:57:23
Speaker 2
Cheers, Lisa, thank you.
00:33:58:00 - 00:34:22:19
Speaker 1
For everyone watching. You can also listen anywhere you get your favorite podcasts. Please be sure to leave a five star review so everyone can find us. You can also watch on YouTube, you can follow on Instagram and you can visit Future of XYZ at ifdesign.com/xyz for all of our past episodes. and we will look forward to seeing you again in two weeks.
00:34:22:24 - 00:34:24:12
Speaker 1
Thanks again, Matt.
00:34:24:14 - 00:34:26:08
Speaker 2
Cheers. Bye.