EPIC2019 Keynote Address, Providence, Rhode Island Studies on the social effects of computing have enumerated the harms done by AI, social media, and algorithmic decision-making to underrepresented communities in the United States and around the globe. I argue that the approaches of enumerating...
Tag: artificial intelligence
Distant Cousins? Minds, Bodies and Machines
EPIC2019 Keynote Address, Providence, Rhode Island It was several centuries ago that the body was spirited out of conversations about intelligence. The mind-body dualism continues to exert strong influence on the world today—in fields as diverse as education, marketing, politics and technology....
My AI versus The Company AI: How Knowledge Workers Conceptualize Forms of AI Assistance in the Workplace
GSuite is changing the nature of Knowledge Work across 5 million businesses through AI-powered assistance. To ensure that this evolution reflects the aspirations and priorities of workers, Google and Stripe Partners conducted a multi-national ethnography of Knowledge Workers covering a range of...
Increasing Perceived Agency in Human-AI Interactions: Learnings from Piloting a Voice User Interface with Drivers on Uber
This case study seeks to increase understanding of how agency is fostered in human-AI interaction by providing insight from Uber’s development of a conversational voice-user-interface (VUI) for its driver application. Additionally, it provides user researchers with insight on how to identify...
The Change before Behaviour: Closing the Value-Action Gap Using a Digital Social Companion
This paper describes an experiment, designed and developed with the ultimate aim of fostering low-pollution and low-carbon social innovation. It offers an evidence-based practical alternative to conventional, technological approaches and narratives of smart cities aimed at sensing air pollution...
Agency and AI in Consulting: Pathways to Prioritize Agency-Enhancing Automations
Amidst the advances of AI and automation, this paper provides a framework for ethnographic methods and insights to enhance human agency at work. Through analyzing data collected from ethnographic immersions in three different consulting firms (a professional services firm, a management...
Believe in A.I.: Will You Pray for a Chatbot?
PechaKucha Presentation Automation and Artificial Intelligence are defying the status quo making us rethink our jobs, our relations and, philosophically, our lives purpose. This emerging trend will affect every aspect of our lives: economically, cultural and socially speaking. If you think that...
Automation Otherwise: A Review of “Automating Inequality”
Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the PoorVirginia Eubanks2018, 272 pp, St. Martin's Press What if we thought differently about how to integrate human and machine agencies? As I sat down in to write this review of Virginia Eubanks’ latest book, Automating...
Just Add Water: Lessons Learned from Mixing Data Science and Design Research Methods to Improve Customer Service
Case Study—This case study provides an inside look at what occurs when methods from the data science and ethnographic fields are mixed to solve perennial customer service problems within the call center and cruise industries. The paper details this particular blend of ethnographic practitioners...
Scale, Nuance, and New Expectations in Ethnographic Observation and Sensemaking
Case Study—We consider new expectations for ethnographic observation and sensemaking in the next 20-25 years, as technology industry ethnographers' work unfolds in the increasing presence of the type of analytical capabilities specially trained (and self-training) machines can do ‘better’ and...