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Designing AI

Article in interactions · November 2018

DOI: 10.1145/3281764

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Philip van Allen Mike Kuniavsky

Delft University of Technology Accenture
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34 INTER ACTIONS N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 0 18 INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG

 38 C
 YBERNETICS AND THE DESIGN OF THE USER
EXPERIENCE OF AI SYSTEMS
42 DESIGN AND FICTION: IMAGINING CIVIC AI
46 PROTOTYPING WAYS OF PROTOTYPING AI
52 F
 ROM MACHINE LEARNING TO MACHINE
TEACHING: THE IMPORTANCE OF UX
58 A
 SSESSING AND ADDRESSING
ALGORITHMIC BIAS IN PRACTICE

SPECIAL
TOPIC

DESIGNING AI
AI techniques have been affecting people’s experiences with digital services,
applications, interactions, and interfaces for a long while now, but without much
engagement with or input from interaction designers and HCI researchers.
Over the past two years, as part of the AAAI Symposia series (2017–2018) [1],
we have organized a gathering of researchers and practitioners from various
disciplines to discuss the UX of AI & ML—the user experience of artificial
intelligence and machine learning. Our main interest in organizing these events was
to discuss the HCI and design-practice implications of the current fascination with
and adoption of artificial intelligence and machine learning in user-facing products.
For the symposia, we invited researchers and practitioners to consider how we
can more effectively bring AI considerations and techniques, HCI research, and
design practice closer together. Our hope was to lay out concrete activities to close
the gap between technical developments in AI methods and techniques, >>>>

Elizabeth F. Churchill, Google

Philip van Allen, ArtCenter College of Design
Mike Kuniavsky, PARC

INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 0 18 INTER ACTIONS 35

special topic
>>>> interaction, and interactive-
system design activities, and
debates around designing with AI,
including discussions of ethical,
explainable, and accountable AI.
We invited considerations of how
HCI and design could influence the
development of new AI technologies
from a number of angles: first, by
questioning what AI means and by
exploring new definitions of AI;
second, by investigating notions of
authority in AI algorithmic decision
making; third, by considering
how to design non-deterministic
ecologies, and by exploring
what it would mean to design for
autonomy and serendipity; fourth,
by outlining ethical issues and
choices that arise when designing
with and for AI systems; and finally,
by raising discussion around the
aesthetics of AI.
The articles in this Special
Topic were selected specifically
because they reflect some of the key
discussions that spanned both the
2017 and the 2018 symposia [2]. Here
are some themes that emerged:
• Terminolog y matters. A critical
project is to identify and clearly
define terms at the intersection
of HCI, interaction design, user
experience, and AI. We explored
where the same words used
colloquially and in the context
of these disciplines may have
very different denotations and
connotations, and considered
what the consequences of such
disconnects may be. Consider the
words conversation, recommendation,
and learning, for example—what
36 INTER ACTIONS N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 0 18
do those words mean in everyday
conversation, versus their meanings
when used by researchers and
practitioners in the fields of HCI,
interaction design, user experience,
and AI?
• Algorithms and data are design
materials. AI is made up of a number
of algorithmic techniques that
manage, summarize, abstract,
manipulate, and/or draw inferences
from different forms of data.
However, neither algorithms
nor data are at the heart of AI.
Algorithms and data are materials
with which to craft robust,
reliable, effective, and appropriate
experiences for people [3].
• At the core of HCI, interaction
design, and user experience are
iterative testing and evaluation.
The evaluation of systems that
use AI techniques requires new
iterative testing and methods that
are designed for analysis and the
(re)design of distributed, complex,
sociotechnical systems, including
the collection of case studies that
illustrate unexpected and unintended
consequences.
• Historical perspectives can reveal
and inspire new ways of thinking
about AI. As designers move from
the design of individual things
to complex ecologies of smart
things, some older conceptions that
influenced the development of AI
may have renewed relevance. In
their article “Cybernetics and the
Design of the User Experience of
AI Systems,” Nick Martelaro and
Wendy Ju explore one influential
area in the development of AI as a
field of inquiry. They showcase the
perspectives and voices of a number
of HCI and design leaders who
consider how cybernetics can help
us rethink the dynamics of systems,
goals, feedback, and conversations
with AI systems.
• Speculative design. Designers
have a long history of practice
oriented not toward solving
a problem, but rather toward
exploring a new domain or future
potential. Design speculation for AI
can consider the new opportunities;
ethical, cultural, and societal
impacts; and potential hazards. In
“Design and Fiction: Imagining
Civic AI,” Jason Wong explores the
idea that “speculation is essential
to work through the uncertainty,
complexity, and ambiguity of AI
problems.” As an example, his
speculative project shows how the
good parts of human governance—
negotiation, diverse perspectives,
slowness—can make
AI better.
• Design tools. Given the
differences in design goals and
strategies for autonomous systems,
new tools are needed that help
designers build working prototypes
for both exploration and application.
These tools should provide ways
of working around the difficult
aspects of AI and enable designers
and others to quickly experiment
and iterate so they can build their
understanding and design better
IMAGE BY LUI ZISHAN
systems. With an exploratory
and playful perspective, Phil van
Allen’s article “Prototyping Ways of
Prototyping AI” describes a toolkit
INTER ACTIONS. ACM.ORG
he recently developed and is refining
with his students. The tool is itself
a prototype that asks the questions:
What should an AI prototyping tool
look like? What affordances do AI
designers need? What are the new
requirements for the design of AI?
• AI collaborators. Rather than
seeing AI as a way to automate
activities or provide solutions,
AI systems can be designed as
collaborators that participate
with humans in creating shared
outcomes. In this sense, human
beings and AI approaches augment
each other. This takes into account
concepts around cybernetics,
distributed cognition, the limits of
narrow AI, and the complexity of
human creativity. “From Machine
Learning to Machine Teaching:
The Importance of UX” by Martin
Lindvall, Jesper Molin, and Jonas
Löwgren discusses this cooperative
approach. The authors address
human-machine teaching as a
key factor in building effective
machine-learning systems, pointing
out that learning algorithms can
offer far superior predictions when
they have substantial amounts
of high-quality, well-annotated
training data. They describe a two-
step process for involving people in
the labeling of training data as part
of their everyday tasks, offering
examples from the analysis of
medical images.
• Explainable AI (XAI) [4]. Beyond
the technical challenges of XAI, our
discussion focused on the design
DOI: 10.1145/3281764 © 2018 ACM 1072-5520/18/11 $15.00
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issues involved. What affordances
can we make available so the user
can respond to explanations? How
much explanation is too much?
What is the role of trust? What
if an AI decision is non-intuitive?
Does the public need to learn the
character of how AI makes decisions?
Cramer et al.’s article, “Assessing
and Addressing Algorithmic Bias in
Practice,” explores one critical facet
of XAI in considering algorithmic
bias and calling to make AI systems
more visible, transparent, and
interrogable.
The symposia confirmed our
view that discussions that bridge
HCI concerns, design research and
practice, and AI have been lacking—
but there is a great deal of positive
energy around the idea that we
could build strong communities of
collaboration and practice to address
this lack. Our discussions clearly
point to the potential and value of
treating AI techniques, the data they
utilize, and the results they produce
as design materials worthy of critical
reflection and investigation. They
also ask us to consider the many
levels of granularity and scopes
of impact, whether what is being
designed is a micro interaction, an
urban infrastructure, or a social
structure.
We hope that the articles in this
Special Topic spark some broader
discussions and ideation in the HCI
and IxD communities, and that
further symposia and workshops
will reinforce that AI methods
N O V E M B E R – D E C E M B E R 2 0 18
and techniques are everybody’s
material for creating better digital
experiences.
Endnotes
1. https://aaai.org/Symposia/symposia.php
2. Although we could only select a few of the
papers for this Special Topic, we want to
acknowledge that the ideas in this short
introduction were developed with all the
participants of the 2017 and 2018 symposia.
3. See Lars Holmquist’s article in
Interactions: Holmiquist, L. Intelligence
on tap: AI as a new design material.
Interactions 24, 4 (2017); http://
interactions.acm.org/archive/view/july-
august-2017/intelligence-on-tap
4. On Explainable AI: https://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/Explainable_Artificial_
Intelligence
Elizabeth Churchill is a director of user
experience at Google. Her current research
focuses on effective tools for creative work,
including tools for interactive technology
designers and developers. She is the current
vice president of the ACM.
→→churchill@acm.org
Philip van Allen is a professor at ArtCenter
College of Design, interested in new models for
the IxD of AI, including non-anthropomorphic
animistic design. He also develops tools
for prototyping complex technologies and
consults for industry. He received his B.A. in
experimental psychology from University of
California, Santa Cruz.
→→vanallen@artcenter.edu
Mike Kuniavsky is a user experience designer,
researcher, and author. Currently at PARC, he
previously cofounded several successful user-
experience-centered companies, including
ThingM, which designs and manufactures
ubiquitous computing and Internet of Things
products, and Adaptive Path, a well-known
design consultancy.
→→mike.kuniavsky@parc.com
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