Autumn 2026
The Character of AI
Instructors: Kristin Dew, John Zoshak, Tyler Fox
Do artifacts have character, and can our daily traffic with them form — or deform — our own? This Directed Research Group opens with two texts in the sociology of technology and then puts them into conversation with virtue ethics to press their conclusions further and apply them to AI tools. We begin with Madeleine Akrich's "The De-Scription of Technical Objects" and Bruno Latour's "Where Are the Missing Masses?", which argue that ordinary artifacts carry scripts: prescriptions and moral competences that designers delegate into matter, quietly shaping how their users perceive and act.
We then turn to Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness. Where Akrich and Latour give us a rich account of how artifacts shape behavior, their vocabulary stops short of character. Foot supplies an interesting addition to the conversation — a naturalized ethics in which goodness and defect are assessed relative to the characteristic form of life. Her "Aristotelian categoricals" offer a standard against which a habit or disposition can be called genuine excellence or a real falling-short, rather than a matter of taste.
As a Directed Research Group, our work will be collaborative and exploratory rather than lecture-driven. We will read closely together, test these frameworks against concrete artifacts each of us cares about, and follow the symmetry between human and nonhuman to its more difficult questions: if habituation forms character and artifacts script action, is design itself a kind of ethics — a design of virtue? Each participant will develop an individual research thread at the intersection that draws them, with the term culminating in a piece of writing or other artifact meant to stand on its own.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Wednesdays, 4:30 - 6 p.m.
- Credits: 2
- This DRG does meet the research requirement for PhD students.
- Who should apply: Students who are willing to read, think, and discuss.
- To apply: Complete this Google Form.
- Application deadline: September 18, 2026, at 5 p.m.
- Anticipated notification date: September 25, 2026
- Questions? Contact Tyler Fox at foxt@uw.edu
Autumn 2026
Design Futures: From Anticipation to Aspiration
Design is always anticipatory. New tools, technologies, and socio-cultural shifts open possibilities that design works to interpret, shape, and extend. Good design depends on anticipatory practices — ways of attending to what might be — and is, in that sense, always bound up with futures. Yet anticipation alone is not enough. To build preferable futures, we also need to cultivate aspiration as a core capacity of designing.
In this DRG we will explore futures and futurity in design through texts and artifacts that surface both registers — what we can anticipate and what we aspire toward. Participants will respond to shared materials through short design pieces of their own, and build toward a small final project that articulates their own working understanding of aspirational design.
Apply via this Google Form by 5 p.m. Friday, September 18, 2026 (Pacific). Invitations to participate will be sent on a rolling basis, with a deadline of Friday, September 25, 2026.
Enrollment information
- Meeting time: Mondays, 4:30 - 6 p.m.
- Credits: 2
- This DRG does meet the research requirement for PhD students.
- Who should apply: Students who have some experience in design (518, 302/303, etc.)
- To apply: Complete this Google Form.
- Application deadline: Friday, September 18, 2026, at 5 p.m.
- Anticipated notification date: September 25, 2026
- Questions? Contact Tyler Fox at foxt@uw.edu
Dr. Fox's Research Group Archive