I could also argue that the word "design" has a connotation strictly opposing emergent behaviour like evolution, as in the intelligent design "theory". So not the best word to use perhaps.
And in your example, just because we made a system that exhibits emergent behaviour to some degree, we can't assume it can "design" intelligence the way evolution did, on a much, much shorter timeline, no less.
There's a branch of AI research I was briefly working in 15 years ago, based on that premise: Genetic algorithms/programming.
So I'd argue humans were (and are continuously being) designed, in a way.