African philosophies of Ubuntu prioritise humanising the community of learning. Contextualising Ubuntu within the emerging Fifth Industrial Revolution (5IR) creates a tension between algorithms and the craft of design scholarship. The effect of the 5IR, while being more human-centred, is also unpredictable in terms of how technology replaces or automates human activity. This has led students to use technology tools to shortcut or circumvent activities that result in deep or transformative learning. Within the context of design education, this threatens the aptitudes and dispositions needed for engaging with the design process with the goal of establishing critical and creative authorship. The threat of automation has destabilised learning systems and structures to the point where such authorship holds the possibility of being appropriated by artificial intelligence (AI). The challenge for educators is how do we create the curricula, material, and learning activities that interpolate students to actively engage in the processes of learning.

This paper draws on post-structural paradigm as it seeks to reposition the formative debates around the perceived threat AI poses to learning, taking cognizance of the ethical concerns regarding authorship, and developing the capacity for creative and cognitive authorship across the various design disciplines. Where AI, such as ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, surveys the known in order to respond to queries and seems to imitate to create. However, the requirements of learning activities such as research or creation/design forge a path through the unknown, using technology as a tool rather than as a substitute for human activity. The paper will offer reflection as discourse on how to reorientate one’s practice against the cardinal framework of teaching and learning in design education. It concludes that cardinal directions embedded within human-centred learning, Ubuntu philosophy, and the criteria for authorship, despite the disruption of AI, still orientate towards the primary goal of student learning.