# Yaniv Steiner, Design and Intelligence — Knowledge Base & Portfolio Dossier **Name**: Yaniv Steiner **Profession & Roles**: AI Strategist & University Lecturer, AI Practitioner (physical AI), Principal Experience Technologist, Interaction Designer, Physical Computing Pioneer **Email**: y.steiner@gmail.com **Website**: https://ais-dev-4af4xxn5dwp2osuwqmdte7-343059251881.europe-west2.run.app **Core Statement**: "I design and build things that explore the relationship between humans, machines and intelligence." --- ## Executive Bio Yaniv Steiner is an **AI Strategist & University Lecturer**, **AI Practitioner in physical AI**, **Principal Experience Technologist**, interaction designer, and physical computing pioneer whose work spans two decades across academia, public policy, and cutting-edge engineering. Steiner's laboratory at the legendary Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII) served as the incubator for Wiring and Arduino—two platforms that democratized physical computing and hardware prototyping for artists, designers, and engineers worldwide. As an AI Strategist and Lead AI Lecturer at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU) in Switzerland, he guides Master of Design students through Transformers, LLMs, Generative AI, and synthetic media ("The Sentient Image"). As an AI practitioner in physical AI, his engineering and design portfolio includes autonomous jet flight systems with AROLAB, real-time multilingual intelligence systems for the European Commission (Europe Media Monitor, MediSys), touchless gestural interfaces, museum installations, and ambient edge AI architectures. --- ## Availability for Engagements & Work Proposals ### 1. Keynote Lectures & Guest Masterclasses Yaniv is available for university lectures, design festivals, academic colloquia, and corporate symposiums. - **Silver, Salt, and Silicon: The Sentient Image**: The philosophical and technical evolution from chemical photography to algorithmic recording and neural hallucination. - **AI Strategy & Visual Culture**: Translating transformer architectures, LLM pipelines, and diffusion models into actionable creative and institutional strategies. - **Physical Computing & Physical AI**: From early workbench prototypes to orbital satellites and autonomous jet airframes. - **Designing with AI & Real-time Data**: How machines observe human language and how designers construct interfaces around automated machine intelligence. - **Autonomous Systems & Embodied Intelligence**: What happens when machines transition from being controlled to controlling themselves in the physical world. ### 2. Strategic Advisory & Work Proposals Organizations, startups, and research institutions can engage Yaniv for: - **AI Strategy Advisory**: Enterprise and academic guidance on AI adoption, generative toolchains, and AI curriculum design. - **Physical AI & Zero-to-One Prototyping**: Fast physical-digital prototyping ("Build the ugly version first") to de-risk ambitious hardware, sensor, and AI concepts. - **Edge AI & Private Network Architectures**: Local LLMs, mesh protocols (LoRa), and privacy-preserving ambient intelligence. - **Physical Interaction & Spatial Computing**: Seamless, disappearing IoT and bespoke embedded systems. ### 3. Contact Details - **Email**: y.steiner@gmail.com - **Subject Recommendations**: - `Lecture Invitation: [Event / Institution Name]` - `Work Proposal: [Project / Concept]` - `Workshop Inquiry: [Topic / Date]` --- ## Full Portfolio Case Studies ### 1. Europe Media Monitor & Data & Design (2011–2021) - **Role**: System Architect & Interaction Designer for European Commission systems. - **Context**: The Europe Media Monitor (EMM) processed enormous real-time multilingual news streams across dozens of languages, recognizing people, organizations, locations, and events, detecting emerging narrative shifts, and tracking crises (pandemics, natural disasters, human trafficking, fraud). - **Research Paper**: "Observing Trends in Automated Multilingual Media Analysis" (arXiv:1603.02604, 2016). - **Core Philosophy**: Data is not neutral; it is collected, structured, measured, and presented. Every step shapes what is made visible and what remains hidden. ### 2. Academia & Teaching (2001–Present) - **Interaction Design Institute Ivrea (IDII)**: Incubator for Wiring and Arduino. Creating accessible hardware entry points for non-engineers. - **Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU)**: Lead AI Lecturer (2021–present), teaching Master of Design students Generative AI, Transformers, and prompt-driven synthetic workflows. - **Other Institutions**: Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Università Iuav di Venezia, University of Sassari, NABA Milan, CIID Copenhagen, IED Torino. - **Mentorship Impact**: Former students and lab collaborators now lead engineering and design divisions at Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Rockstar Games. ### 3. Problem Solving & Prototyping Methodology - **Core Principle**: "Notice the eye you are bringing to the problem before touching the thing itself." - **Methodology**: 1. *Observe before framing*: Spend time with real humans living inside the constraint. 2. *Turn problems into questions*: Frame sharp "How might we" inquiries. 3. *Build the ugly version first*: Rapid 5-minute prototypes to test survival in the physical world. 4. *Put hands in first*: Directly test constraints against wind, gravity, and human friction. 5. *Iterate in public fast*: Three rapid cycles beats months of theoretical slide decks. ### 4. Autonomous Jet Flight Systems (2024–Present) - **Collaborator**: AROLAB - **Focus**: High-speed jet-powered airframes equipped with onboard sensor arrays and autonomous AI flight controllers. - **Inquiry**: Moving from human remote control to autonomous aerodynamic decision-making in physical space without pause or reset. ### 5. Selected Works & Inventions - **Virtual Sumo** (with Mario Canali & Massimo Banzi): Biometric & spatial interactive battle interface. - **ThePlaystation.org** (1999): Early interactive online radio and multimedia interview station. - **Fightsuit** (with Søren Pors at IDII): Wearable sensory fight system. - **Touchless Interfaces** (Early 2000s): Camera- and sensor-driven touchless interfaces in Milan. - **Mycelium Experiments**: Biological computing and ecological signal processing. - **High-End Ambient IoT Interiors**: Disappearing technology integrated seamlessly into lighting and architecture. ### 6. Silver, Salt, and Silicon (Lecture Presentation) - **Institution**: HSLU Lucerne (Design, Film & Art) - **Key Idea**: Tracing the arc of image-making from 19th-century silver halide emulsion to silicon pixels and contemporary deep neural networks. Explores the ontological shift from recording optical photons to algorithmic synthesis ("The Sentient Image"). --- ## Web Directory & Endpoints - **Sitemap**: https://yanivsteiner.com/sitemap - **XML Sitemap**: https://yanivsteiner.com/sitemap.xml - **Home**: https://yanivsteiner.com/ - **Lectures**: https://yanivsteiner.com/understand-ai - **Academia**: https://yanivsteiner.com/learn-something - **Problem Solving**: https://yanivsteiner.com/problem-to-solve - **Autonomous Flight**: https://yanivsteiner.com/fly - **Selected Works**: https://yanivsteiner.com/see-what-youve-made - **Europe Media Monitor**: https://yanivsteiner.com/europe-media-monitor - **Collaboration & Proposals**: https://yanivsteiner.com/work-with-you