I’m excited to announce my upcoming presentation at the Second International Seminar on ‘Design Education in the Post-AI World’ taking place tomorrow (Saturday) at the Centre for Design Studies in Indore, India.

This seminar holds special significance for me as it’s organized by my former professor and mentor, Kirti Trivedi (or KT as he is known). KT is a transformational educator who fundamentally changed my thinking about design during my time at IDC School of Design in IIT Mumbai from 1988-1990. I still vividly remember his lectures and presentations on the indigenous creativity of Indian truck drivers and the fractal architecture of Hindu temples that opened my eyes to new ways of seeing design in our everyday world.

Our connection has continued over the years. I recently contributed an article to his educational journal nEDU exploring the intersections and differences between philosophers Dewey and Krishnamurti and their ideas on learning from experience. (See Jiddu Krishnamurti and John Dewey in the Metaverse: Education and Experience in an age of Virtuality).  

For this conference my presentation is based on another paper I recently submitted to nEDU (still in press). The paper “The Promise and Paradox of Creative AI,” examines AI as a “paradoxical collaborator” – a system that can generate mathematically precise poetry one moment and completely misinterpret simple visual information the next.

Through a series of personal experiments (most of which are archived on this blog), I explore both the potential and limitations of creative AI partnerships. From systems confidently misidentifying optical illusions to collaborative typographical designs that blend human insight with machine generated music and poetry, I will discuss how having a “smart, drunk, supremely confident intern” can help us see our own creative practices in new light.

Those who know KT understand that his seminars are unlike any other academic gathering. As he describes it, there are “no call for papers, no blind peer review, no starchy presentations” – instead, each event is meticulously curated to explore multiple perspectives on a theme through carefully selected speakers. If KT’s past seminars are any indication this promises to be a truly memorable event, with a great lineup of speakers (see the full list here) and I am thrilled to be part of it.

Sadly, given distance and prior commitments, I will not be able to travel to Indore to present—I will be presenting late night this Friday, over Google Meet. I will be Indoor, not in Indore. (Sorry, bad puns are my forte.) Not the same as being there in person, but I’m still glad to be part of the conversation.