A great irony of our age is that, as we alter our planet, probably irreversibly, we're rethinking what we mean by "life". On the one hand, we're witnessing the consequences of climate change and our impact on the planet's ecosystems. On the other hand, technologies that blur the boundaries between natural and artificial are increasingly within our grasp.

I've written previously about life sciences and the brave new world of bio-design, from wetware computing to the construction of buildings from regenerative materials such as fungi. But what we're also seeing more of now is an expansion not just of what we make things with but for whom — or rather for what — we make them.

For years, a dominant school of thought has been human-centered design — a commonly used term that refers to the practice of thinking carefully about the needs of the person who will use the to-be-designed product or service. Increasingly, though, a movement has grown calling us to "move beyond human-centered design towards an approach that takes into consideration not only humans but the complete biosphere".

Better known as life-centered design, this approach to innovation and design seeks to design for the entire planet by taking into consideration social, environmental and sustainable implications, including for other species (or "non-human strategic stakeholders", as one proponent of "environment-centered design" put it). And the implications for designers, innovators and technologists alike are huge.

Life-centered design illustration courtesy of Damien Lutz

Design for life

On the face of it, life-centered design, which "increas[es] the stakeholders from just 'user and business' to 'user, non-user, local and global communities, ecosystems, and planetary boundaries'", makes good sense. "As humans, we've been a little bit silly," says the Zimbabwean-born designer and biomaterial expert Natsai Audrey Chieza. "We've been designing for one species for a really long time. The question is, how do we move away from human-centered design to a multi-species agenda for design."

Nor is the recent shift to life-centered design surprising. We are, after all, increasingly giving rights to natural entities and acknowledging their "personhood". In 2010, Bolivia passed the Law of Mother Earth — the world's first legislation granting all nature equal rights to humans. In 2020, New Zealand's third-longest river, the Whanganui, became the first in the world to be considered a legal person. It can now be represented in court and has had two guardians appointed to speak on its behalf. Some, meanwhile, are litigating whether animals can have personhood (a development with notorious historical precedents).

Whanganui River on the North Island of New Zealand. Photograph by James Shook

Still, some may balk at "thinking beyond us", taking a much wider perspective of life and embracing everything living as the stuff we design with and for. (Even more radical is the idea of going beyond posthumanism and putting all objects at the center of being.) For one thing, as countries adopt laws granting rights to nature, each provides a different answer as to which rights should be recognized and who should be responsible for protecting them. The definition of "life-centered design" is similarly unclear. What exactly do we mean by "life"? As a design principle, does it really require taking deadly bacteria and viruses into consideration, too?

The lack of consistency undermines the case for "planet-centric design", too. This growing movement asks us to "move from egoism to ecosystems" and acknowledge that "we are not alone on our planet and that this planet has limits". On the face of it, that makes sense. But what if the principle were extended to include Mars? Or all planets? Or galaxies?

From a "planet-centered" perspective, the argument seems to be that if we discovered alien lifeforms, we should seek to preserve, if not protect, them. There may come a time when humans flee Earth for another planet. Amid such circumstances, would we really need to "center" other species on that planet as much as our own? Interplanetary design ethics is not far off, international space law for planetary protection already precludes terraforming of planets e.g. Elon Musk's quick fix.

After life

Quibbles aside — and no matter what you make of going beyond "human-centered design" — we're right to extend the definition of "life" and change how we design and develop new technology accordingly. For innovators, in particular, the opportunities are huge as we rethink concepts such as youth, relationships, aging, and longevity and extend the human life span — at first through better healthcare, then through human biological enhancement such as gene editing, rapid prototyping of artificial or replacement body parts, brain-computer interfaces, and cloning.

Developments in digital technology, meanwhile, may one day permit us to create digital versions of ourselves that outlast our physical demise and allow us to "live" on long after our death. If this happens — that is, when the self is fully detached from the body — it will redefine what a person is. The consequences of that are almost unimaginable.

In the domestic realm, it would certainly give the notion of the extended family a new meaning. In the professional realm, it might mean employees in knowledge-intensive jobs can continue to work via their digital twin, contributing their expertise and know-how way beyond their own physical life span. More complex still will be the legal status of "people" who exist only in the digital afterlife. Should they have rights and obligations? Should they, for instance, pay tax and make social security contributions?

Finally, there's the question of whom we should be building and designing for. As we've seen, today's alternatives to human-centered design are fundamentally incoherent: Does life- or planet-centered design mean designing for species that might wipe us out or preclude terraforming a planet we may one day call home? Discrimination in design and innovation – and maybe overall - at some level is inevitable. We will, after all, never go against our own interests.

In that light, we will have to integrate human interests in all our endeavors. We are potentially interlinked with everything that does and will exist. We should be designing for the interlinkages that don't kill us. Call it designing for fellowships — for humans and the planet, for humans and our ecosystems and, as we move into the age of posthumanism and potentially sentient robots, for humans and our nonhuman fellows, humans and planets...

Either way, the opportunities for innovators, technologists and designers are immense – human and not.

Follow Jens Martin Skibstead on X @jmskibsted

-- Thumbnail image by USGS on Unsplash