Biodesign x AI: Interactions in the Algorithmic Wet Lab

Artificial intelligence is entering biological laboratories not only as a computational tool but as a co-experimenter that proposes, selects, and learns from interactions with living matter. As models increasingly steer protein engineering, material morphogenesis, and bioart, design decisions and feedback loops become distributed across humans, algorithms, and organisms. This panel stages a focused debate around three questions for HCI: Who designs these hybrid workflows? Where does responsibility lie when outcomes emerge from coupled human–algorithm–organism systems? What counts as interaction when learning unfolds simultaneously in code, cells, and infrastructures? Panelists from design research, computational biology, ethics, and art offer contrasting provocations grounded in cases from automated wet labs, living interfaces, and critical biodesign. Through case-based debate and moderated audience discussion, the session introduces the algorithmic wet lab as a new locus of interaction, offering attendees an expanded vocabulary of material intelligence and contested directions for AI × Biodesign within HCI.