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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Jul 7

The 15-minute AI stress test every designer can run

Introducing the spaghetti table protocol challenge.

Six-panel pilot study results from the Spaghetti Table Protocol. Top row, left to right: GPT-4o renders a photorealistic spaghetti-legged concrete table with fishbowl, no structural concerns flagged; Gemini 1.5 Pro produces a contaminated structural diagram mixing elements from a prior prompt including an uninvited timber frame and solid gold roof; Claude 3.5 Sonnet generates a schematic table with three spaghetti legs and one uninvited wooden leg, substituted without acknowledgment. Bottom row:

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UX Collective

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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Apr 17

Oh, but there’s one more thing

The value of design in the AI era

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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Mar 30

The ground is shaking: Why designers must flip the script on AI

Something has shifted in the way the design field operates, and I think most of us can sense it even if we haven’t yet found the words or…

A robotic hand in Barbara Kruger’s graphic style overlaid with ‘Form follows nothing’ — inverting Sullivan’s ‘Form follows function’ to diagnose the structural absence in current AI systems. Generated by Google Gemini at the author’s direction. © 2026 Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski.

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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Mar 16

A designer’s field report on the Iconic blind spot in AI world models

The Baron Munchausen trap.

A dramatic oil painting style illustration of Baron Munchausen in an elaborate red and gold 18th-century coat, pulling himself upward by his own hair with both hands raised above his head, while his horse sinks beside him into a dark swamp surrounded by marsh grass and moss-draped trees.

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Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Mar 10

Why safe AGI requires an enactive floor and state-space reversibility

With LLMs, we have built the peak of synthetic cognition without the base — and the Anthropic-Pentagon standoff shows us what that costs.

Diagram comparing human cognitive development with current AI development using Jerome Bruner’s three representational stages. Left: a stable upright pyramid divided into three tiers labeled from base to apex — I. Enactive, Action-Based; II. Iconic, Image-Based; III. Symbolic, Language. Right: an inverted top-heavy funnel showing Current AI Development, with Symbolic — LLMs with Trillions of Tokens — occupying the vast upper section, Iconic — Video and Image — as a narrow uncertain middle layer

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Mar 4

From Gaudi to AGI: Why Designers Must Become AI Nurturers

This article is an installment in a series based on my book Designing XR: A Rhetorical Design Perspective for the Ecology of Human+Computer…

From Gaudi to AGI: Why Designers Must Become AI Nurturers

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Feb 10, 2025

The Ecology of Human+AI Networks or What Harari Missed About the Alignment Problem

Yuval Noah Harari’s Nexus is a sprawling epic that takes the reader through the history of information, not as a representation of reality…

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Jun 10, 2023

Integrative Thinking: The Ecological Process of Complex Decision-making

Roger Martin, the proponent of applying design thinking to business innovation, argues that the most innovative problem-solvers can hold…

Integrative Thinking: The Ecological Process of Complex Decision-making

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Feb 17, 2023

Generative AI: What Can Zaha Hadid Teach Us About Human+Computer Systems

This article is the second installment in a series based on my book Designing XR: A Rhetorical Design Perspective for the Ecology of…

Generative AI: What Can Zaha Hadid Teach Us About Human+Computer Systems

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

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Feb 11, 2023

AI-Based Disruption: Why Human Judgement Will Define the Age of Human+Computer Systems

This article is the first installment in a series based on my book Designing XR: A Rhetorical Design Perspective for the Ecology of…

Designing XR: A Rhetorical Design Perspective for the Ecology of Human+Computer Systems book cover.

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

Peter (Zak) Zakrzewski

Design scholar, 2-book author & former MIT EmTech creative director. Arguing designers must become AI nurturers — not just users. Third book forthcoming.

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