Share With advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), it’s common to hear designers preach about the need for human-centred technology – systems, devices and software that cater to our specific human needs, behaviours and foibles. As algorithms affect our lives in profound yet invisible ways, placing the human at the centre of the design process is meant to ensure that they work in our favour – and that we get technological progress right. Most often, this approach translates into products and tools that are intuitive and user-friendly, and that support human wellbeing. But what if situating the human at the heart of design isn’t enough to steer innovation in the right direction? What if it’s precisely what we should avoid? Human-centred thinking has marked drawbacks. We can trace the desire to focus on the human – and the human alone – to an anthropocentric logic that has guided technological development for centuries and, ultimately, led to the current state of ecological crisis. Viewed in this light, the rise of AI represents a chance to forge new, less extractive but still productive relationships with the organisms and entities with which we share the planet.