The first question we ask of a new technology is what can this product do for me. It’s a useful lens for evaluation, and AI is right in the middle of answering that: do my work, read my emails, write my docs, achieve my dreams, yada yada.
The question seldom asked is what can this product do for the other. How do we make it easier for the other person to understand us? How do we take the burden off other people that we work with? How do we help other people? Much of what we use today don’t arrive at this stage of questioning.
AI is poised to be the most transformative technology in my lifetime. It is also, so far, a Randian ideal: it accentuates differences and reinforces individual preferences. However, we are social creatures who rise and fall together. So the imperative question we should all be asking at the moment, designer or not, is what can this technology do for us.