Not Knowing to Reimagine. Toward an Ignorance-Oriented Design in Times of Artificial Intelligence

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Published: Sep 12, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.3
Keywords:
imaginarios, tecnodiversidad, metodologías, diseño crítico, desborde imaginaries, technodiversity, methodologies, critical design, excess

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Martín Tironi
School of Design, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6569-9527

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has gained prominence in public debate, not only as a tool to optimize processes, but also as a dominant narrative of development and progress. These imaginaries, grounded in references from the Global North, tend to define the possible and desirable futures of AI in an exclusive manner. With the aim of decentering these hegemonic visions and creating space for a Latin American situated technodiversity, this article analyzes the implementation of an experimental critical design workshop—carried out with actors from the Chilean technological ecosystem—and its failure to generate alternative imaginaries. Based on this experience, a reflection on the role of failure and ignorance in creative practices is proposed. It is argued that the emergence of failure can activate forms of generative ignorance, opening up fertile methodological and analytical spaces for rethinking our relationship with AI. The article conceptualizes the exploratory notion of an ignorance-oriented design: a practice that learns from excess, stays with the trouble, and recognizes the value of what we do not yet know or cannot anticipate. It aims to contribute to a design epistemology that is committed to the possibilities that ignorance introduces to creative processes.

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How to Cite
Tironi, M. (2025). Not Knowing to Reimagine. Toward an Ignorance-Oriented Design in Times of Artificial Intelligence. Diseña, (27), Article.3. https://doi.org/10.7764/disena.27.Article.3
Issue
No. 27 (2025): Affirmation? How to Learn to Live with ‘The Others’ Through Design (2nd Issue)
Section
Original Articles (part 1)
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Author Biography

Martín Tironi, School of Design, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Director and faculty member at the School of Design of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC). Director of the Millennium Nucleus FAIR (Futures of Artificial Intelligence Research). He holds a PhD from Centre de Sociologie de l’Innovation (CSI), École des Mines de Paris. After earning his undergraduate degree in Sociology from PUC, he obtained a Master’s degree from Université Paris Descartes. Upon completing his PhD, he carried out postdoctoral research at CSI. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Invention and Social Process at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is an associate researcher at the Center for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS). His research, creative work, and teaching focus on two main areas: the analysis of the sociotechnical impact of digital infrastructures and devices, and the anthropology of design, exploring non-anthropocentric approaches oriented towards planetary sustainability and more-than-human interdependencies. He is co-editor of Design for More-Than-Human Futures: Towards Post-Anthropocentric Worlding (with M. Chilet, C. Ureta Marín, and P. Hermansen; Routledge, 2023). Some of his most recent publications include 'Artificial Intelligence in the New Forms of Environmental Governance in the Chilean State: Towards an Eco-Algorithmic Governance' (co-authored with D. I. Rivera Lisboa; Technology in Society, vol. 74) and 'How to Become Terrestrial: Design for Planetary Habitability' (in How to Design a Revolution: The Chilean Road to Design, Lars Müller Publishers, 2024).

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