BEYOND HUMAN INCLUSION: AI AND THE EXPANSION OF CREATIVE PARTICIPATION IN DESIGN

Design is facing unprecedented environmental and social pressures, with growing urgency to create regenerative, sustainable and biodiversity-supportive futures. As multiple crises converge, it becomes increasingly clear that design must extend beyond human needs, addressing planetary interdependencies and the vitality of more-than-human systems. In this context, traditional Inclusive Design—focused mainly on representing human differences—must evolve. Artificial intelligence (AI) introduces a radically new type of intelligence, one that does not think or perceive as humans do, yet actively participates in creative and decision-making processes. This shift expands inclusion from a human-centred stance toward a broader perspective that embraces multiple intelligences and ways of knowing. This paper examines how inclusion evolves across the Three Waves Paradigm of human–AI interaction: from augmented inclusivity, where AI enhances human capabilities and broadens participation (first wave), to shared intelligence, where humans and AI collaborate as interconnected cognitive partners, expanding inclusion beyond human perspectives by integrating reasoning patterns of AI (second wave), to coexistence, where intelligence becomes distributed across human, artificial and more-than-human systems. Drawing on the Design Council’s Design for Planet Principles, we argue that this evolution aligns with Acanfora’s notion of a “coexistence of differences” - a perspective that acknowledges the needs of people, planet and other species. AI is already reshaping design practice, expanding the boundaries of who and what participates in design. We discuss implications for design education, emphasising the need to prepare future designers to engage critically and strategically with AI within multi-intelligence ecosystems capable of supporting sustainable and regenerative futures.