Datascope and Ideo have a new buzz phrase for their application of human-centered design to the world of algorithms and data science: “augmented intelligence.”

“Ultimately, we’re using the term ‘augmented intelligence’ to really focus on the fact that we’re extending and enhancing people’s capabilities through technology, as opposed to thinking of technology as a separate thing, or replacing people’s capabilities with technology,” Stringer says.

Algorithms have always been designed, but most often by engineers and computer programmers, not by designers who have been trained in the traditional sense to respond to the needs of people. Brown draws parallels to the birth of interaction design in the 1980s, a field which Ideo cofounder Bill Moggridge coined.

“Data and algorithms and machine learning—all of these things collectively together are a new medium for design,” Brown says. “They can be crafted and shaped by people who think about what the world should be like, who have the imagination to do that, and have the technical skills to actually build the things. I think the design industry is getting excited about [data science], as it realizes [data science] is really a different way of shaping the world.”