At a packed Anti Copying in Design (ACID) event at Clerkenwell Design Week yesterday, our experienced panel including well known entrepreneur Rob Law MBE., Designer, Educator and Engineer, Professor Sebastian Conran and Dids Macdonald OBE., ACID’s Chair and Co-Founder explored the intersection of AI, IP and design, one thing became abundantly clear: while artificial intelligence may accelerate processes and expand creative possibility, it lacks the one ingredient that defines true design; human discernment.

The Lords’ recent stand in the Data and Users Bill debate affirms this. Copyright is not a commodity for government to surrender to machines. AI’s vast reach into data-scraped learning cannot match the human journey that underpins authentic creative rights. Panellists underscored that design right remains a complex, often ambiguous area of law—far more nuanced than copyright—and even more vulnerable to disruption by AI technologies.

The ACID legal affiliate panellists, both design law experts, Gavin Llewellyn of Stone King and Adam Turley of McDaniels Law emphasised that precedent and intuition built through years of creative collaboration cannot be replaced by algorithms. Attendees raised pressing questions: How can one distinguish originality in AI-generated work? What about international legal disparities? And perhaps most pointedly—does AI dull critical thinking?

Concerns weren’t all cautionary. Design entrepreneur Rob Law embraced AI as a tool for efficiency and innovation and his recent invention, Zeepy, has utilised AI to create a bedtime narrative for children with a 95% accuracy in translation to other languages. Both Rob and Sebastian Conran praised AI for its assistance with composition for those with dyslexia, though still warned of its limitations in a number of areas.

The message was clear from ACID’s Chair Dids Macdonald: “Respect, ethics, and compliance must be integral to creatives and AI working in tandem underscored by transparency.” And quoted the philosopher Yuval Noah Harari who warned, “We must regulate AI before it regulates us.” She also cautioned about news from the US that Trump had sacked the copyright chief following a report which made a strong case for creatives over AI.

The future of design demands vigilance—not just in protecting intellectual property, but in preserving the spontaneity, critical thought, and emotional intelligence that AI cannot replicate. For the next generation of designers and engineers, the advice is simple but essential: use AI but never forget what makes your creativity truly human.

A huge thank you to our fantastic panellists Rob Law MBE., Sebastian Conran, Dids Macdonald OBE., Gavin Llewellyn and Adam Turley for their insight and expertise, and ACID would like to extend our thanks to Clerkenwell Design Week for their support in hosting the event.