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Part of ISBN 9798400706325QC 20240708

Every interaction with an AI-powered device invokes a vast planetary network. Operating on temporal and geographical scales that go beyond humans, Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems pose various societal and environmental challenges. These challenges encompass issues such as the extraction of both human and nonhuman resources and knowledge, and the reproduction of inequalities. To tackle these concerns, scholars in Design and Human-Computer-Interaction emphasize the urgency for designers to cultivate non-anthropocentric approaches. In the pursuit of establishing a non-anthropocentric design practice for AI, this paper adopts a more-than-human orientation in the design of conversational agents (CAs). We start by presenting a series of design experiments, including workshops, videos and performances, that shed light on the anthropocentric biases ingrained in CA interactions. These experiments unveil how CAs are designed to recognize and address only specific human voices and concerns. Building upon these insights, we introduce two outcomes that chart an alternative path – the first involves a collection of interactive prototypes for CAs that are capable of listening and responding to more-than-human “voices” while the second entails a tool to support designers in noticing more-than-human entanglements, in the form of a podcast. We conclude by reflecting on how the knowledge gained from our design inquiry can illuminate future design practices and contribute to AI research as a whole.

Conversation Starters is a series of interactive prototypes that probe how to design explainable interactions with AI in everyday life. Taking a more-than-human approach, we explore how 'failures' could be transformed into opportunities for situated understandings of AI. We describe the process of designing fictional artifacts and scenarios about conversational agents that can grow at home. While overall the project suggests that misunderstandings could help people develop sensitivities for knowing when to trust AI systems, the metaphor of 'growing an AI' (which positions training as a matter of care), highlights that practices of sharing and experimenting could be valuable starting points for designing explainable and trustworthy interactions with of AI.

A key challenge in the design of AI systems is how to support people in understanding them. We address this challenge by positioning explanations in everyday life, within ongoing relations between people and artificial agents. By reorienting explainability through more-than-human design, we call for a new approach that considers both people and artificial agents as active participants in constructing understandings. To articulate such an approach, we first review the assumptions underpinning the premise of explaining AI. We then conceptualize a shift from explanations to shared understandings, which we characterize as situated, dynamic, and performative. We conclude by proposing two design strategies to support shared understandings, i.e. looking across AI and exposing AI failures. We argue that these strategies can help designers reveal the hidden complexity of AI (e.g., positionality and infrastructures), and thus support people in understanding agents' capabilities and limitations in the context of their own lives.

What if things had a voice? What if we could talk directly to things instead of using a mediating voice interface such as an Alexa or a Google Assistant? In this paper, we share our insights from talking to a pair of boots, a tampon, a perfume bottle, and toilet paper among other everyday things to explore their conversational capabilities. We conducted Thing Interviews using a more-than-human design approach to discover a thing's perspectives, worldviews and its relations to other humans and nonhumans. Based on our analysis of the speculative conversations, we identified some themes characterizing the emergent qualities of people's relationships with everyday things. We believe the themes presented in the paper may inspire future research on designing everyday things with conversational capabilities at home., Part of proceedings: ISBN 978-1-4503-8095-9QC 20220411

This one-day workshop brings together HCI researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore how to study and design (with) AI agents from a more-than-human design perspective. We invite participants to experiment with thing ethnography and material speculations, as a starting point to map and possibly integrate emergent frameworks and methodologies for more-than-human design. By using conversational agents as a case, participants will discuss what a more-than-human approach can offer to the understanding and design of AI systems, and how this aligns with third-wave HCI concerns of networks, infrastructures, and ecologies., QC 20201020

The last decade has witnessed the expansion of design space to include the epistemologies and methodologies of more-than-human design (MTHD). Design researchers and practitioners have been increasingly studying, designing for, and designing with nonhumans. This panel will bring together HCI experts who work on MTHD with different nonhumans as their subjects. Panelists will engage the audience through discussion of their shared and diverging visions, perspectives, and experiences, and through suggestions for opportunities and challenges for the future of MTHD. The panel will provoke the audience into reflecting on how the emergence of MTHD signals a paradigm shift in HCI and human-centered design, what benefits this shift might bring and whether MTH should become the mainstream approach, as well as how to involve nonhumans in design and research.

The last decade has witnessed the expansion of design space to include the epistemologies and methodologies of more-than-human design (MTHD). Design researchers and practitioners have been increasingly studying, designing for, and designing with nonhumans. This panel will bring together HCI experts who work on MTHD with different nonhumans as their subjects. Panelists will engage the audience through discussion of their shared and diverging visions, perspectives, and experiences, and through suggestions for opportunities and challenges for the future of MTHD. The panel will provoke the audience into reflecting on how the emergence of MTHD signals a paradigm shift in HCI and human-centered design, what benefits this shift might bring and whether MTH should become the mainstream approach, as well as how to involve nonhumans in design and research.