  Thinking of technology as a design material is appealing. It encourages
designers to explore the material's properties to understand its capabilities
and limitations, a prerequisite to generative design thinking. However, as a
material, AI resists this approach because its properties emerge as part of the
design process itself. Therefore, designers and AI engineers must collaborate
in new ways to create both the material and its application experience. We
investigate the co-creation process through a design study with 10 pairs of
designers and engineers. We find that design 'probes' with user data are a
useful tool in defining AI materials. Through data probes, designers construct
designerly representations of the envisioned AI experience (AIX) to identify
desirable AI characteristics. Data probes facilitate divergent thinking,
material testing, and design validation. Based on our findings, we propose a
process model for co-creating AIX and offer design considerations for
incorporating data probes in design tools.
