Dr Maggie Mustaklem
Research Associate, Oxford Internet Institute
Dr Maggie Mustaklem is a Research Associate and designer focusing on AI x Design, with implications for human-AI co-creativity and Responsible AI.
Academic profile
About
Dr Maggie Mustaklem recently completed doctoral research focused on how design inspiration migrated to algorithmic platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, increasingly mediated by technology. But designers are not end users, they are using these platforms to design the products and services we use. As generative AI takes hold in the creative industries this is only more prevalent.
Dr Mustaklem's research argued visual flattening of design aesthetics via algorithms sourced for inspiration is entangled with real world conditions - geographies, team structures and design behaviours that create a reachable design space - sort of a bounding box around what is actually possible to design.
This contextualizes design behaviours in their broader sociomaterial context by arguing that creatives also co-flatten when they use AI tools for ideation (they are not always co-creating), and that Responsible AI needs to also centre a focus on responsible use (instead of training and governance).
Dr Mustaklem is also involved with Better Images of AI and is working to improve AI’s visual identity across industries.
She holds a Master of Arts in History of Design from the Royal College of Art and Victoria & Albert Museum and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from the University of Michigan.
Expertise
- Artificial Intelligence (AI)
- Creative industries
- Design
- Material and visual culture
Media experience
Maggie Mustaklem’s expertise on AI and creativity has featured across a range of media, including Dezeen and Fast Company.
Recent media work
- Design, Interrupted explores how "everyday AI" is restricting creativity (Dezeen, 2023)
- The trick to finding design inspiration in the age of algorithmic sameness (Fast Company, 2023)
- The Week in Design: Jony Ive’s Design Encore, Punk’s Not Dead, Design Thinking Under Scrutiny (Medium, 2023)
- How AI is Changing the Design Process (2023)
- Misinformation and Musk with Maggie McGrath (podcast, 2022)