Iain Humm

Project Manager

iA

iA on AI

As designers we create tools for humans. These tools are to benefit people in their work and we should be careful to not remove all humanity from that work. Without intentional design of how these language models should be used within our apps, we can see a future where all content is generated and without understanding. Language models are an interesting tool with loads of possibilities, but they should not be used as a way to supplant human understanding. They cannot. Rather, we should strive to design interfaces to these tools that increase human understanding of their work.

Information Architects take on the rushed integration of language modeling software into everyday apps, and why we should take a more measured, human approach to designing these interfaces.

About Iain

Iain Humm is the project manager of iA, the Tokyo and Zurich-based design consultancy. Iain studied linguistics, semiotics and computer science at the University of Toronto before moving to Vancouver to work at a start up in the photography space. He moved to Japan in 2012 and soon joined iA in 2014. Iain brings a calm, pragmatic approach to iA’s products and client services.
iA serves clients in the media industry like Nikkei, NHK, Condé Nast, Red Bull, The Guardian, Asics, Die Zeit, and Wikipedia. iA is also known for its design philosophical essays and, mainly, iA Writer, a pioneering minimalist text editor they have been developing since 2010.