The Value of Digital Design Ethics in Maintaining Semiotic Visual Message Authority of Signs in an AI Landscape

Abstract

Design encompasses every system from reading to the internet, from wayfinding to a plan or a drawing, to the look and function of a building, a garden, or a citrus squeezer, all processes require a design system to be explicitly defined. The concept of design thinking has formed naturally alongside many complex practices and systems and the rise in digital platforms has expedited the dissemination of design practice. In these rapidly changing times, the inclusion of modern artistic design thinking and practice needs transparent codification for the expert and the layperson.
This study aims to shine light on the global disparity between the design practice of digital novice designers and message disseminators and their professional designer counterparts. The value of a universal digital design ethic to maintain semiotic visual message authority (the prescription of authenticity of the message and meaning by the originating author) has been investigated previously but not in the context of the digital space, including future AI developments, and has not been fully elucidated, or fully supported, and has never been more necessary.
Data was gathered through an observation of perception of digital visual artefacts incorporating a generative AI portrait gallery, reminiscent of National Portrait Gallery portraits and photographic series, where demographic identities were left unassigned, participants were invited to answer a series of questions alluding to semiotic visual message authority. Findings display the ad hoc nature of human perception as it relates to AI portrait recognition to date.