Design, Nature and Digital Technologies: Artificial Intelligence’s Ethic for Techno-Social Innovation and (Digital) Sustainability

Contemporary “digital” societies are going through a phase of chaotic growth that imposes the search for a new balance between nature, humanity and technology. Technicistichal dystopias—datacracy (De Kerckhove 2016a), surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019), prepotency of algorithms, deep fake, etc.—impose a rethinking of societies in the direction of a “digital humanism” (Nida-Rümelin and Weidenfeld 2019) based on the challenge related to the major transversal issues of the present-future such as sustainability, equity and inclusivity. In this dynamic, changing and generative scenario, to trigger new forms of transformation of the world, it becomes essential to transition from the project of “things” (analog) to the project of “relationships” (digital) (Floridi 2020a) and vice versa. New artifacts, products, environments and hybrid services allow to prefigure and elaborate unusual spaces of complex interaction typical of the Infosfera (Floridi 2017). New technical-productive, social-cultural, natural-artificial spaces, which are configured as a new, complex and challenging hybrid digital ecosystem (Iaconesi and Persico Iaconesi 2015, 2016, 2021a, b, c; Manzini 2021) in which design must act by innovating behaviors and languages. Starting from these considerations, the paper presents a theoretical reflection that intertwines key issues of contemporary debate on the ecological and digital transition, investigating, in particular, the complex relationships between artificial intelligence (but also algorithms, big data, IoT) and design culture/disciplines. The theoretical framework is followed by one significant project experience that highlight the correlation between technological social and cultural innovation guided by design and by a renewed ethical approach through which it is possible to conceive a new kind of artifacts/services that, through new rituals, practices and collective and connective actions, lead to new forms of expression and sensitivity (Iaconesi and Persico Iaconesi 2019, 2021b).