Tag: CHI

CHI 2021 conference papers

Posted on by Alex Taylor
Two papers at the CHI con­fer­ence this year.

Sara Heitlinger, Lara Hous­ton, Alex Tay­lor, Ruth Cat­low (2021) Algo­rith­mic Food Jus­tice: Co-Design­ing More-than-Human Blockchain Futures for the Food Com­mons, Pro­ceed­ings of the 2021 CHI Con­fer­ence on Human Fac­tors in Com­put­ing Sys­tems, New York, NY, USA: Asso­ci­a­tion for Com­put­ing Machin­ery, pdf, doi:10.1145/3411764.3445655

Abstract
The rela­tion­ships that con­sti­tute the glob­al indus­tri­al food sys­tem tend towards two dom­i­nant val­ues that are cre­at­ing unsus­tain­able social and envi­ron­men­tal inequal­i­ties. The first is a human-cen­tered per­spec­tive on food that priv­i­leges humans over all oth­er species. The sec­ond is a view of food as a com­mod­i­ty to be trad­ed for max­i­mum eco­nom­ic val­ue, reward­ing a small num­ber of share­hold­ers. We present work that explores the unique algo­rith­mic affor­dances of blockchain to cre­ate new types of val­ue exchange and gov­er­nance in the food sys­tem. We describe a project that used role­play with urban agri­cul­tur­al com­mu­ni­ties to co-design blockchain-based food futures and explore the con­di­tions for cre­at­ing a thriv­ing mul­ti­species food com­mons. We dis­cuss how the project helped rethink algo­rith­mic food jus­tice by recon­fig­ur­ing more-than-human val­ues and recon­fig­ur­ing food as more-than-human com­mons. We also dis­cuss some of the chal­lenges and ten­sions aris­ing from these explorations. 
Algo­rith­mic Food Jus­tice, CHI 2021 (286 downloads) 

Ceci­ly Mor­ri­son, Edward Cutrell, Mar­tin Grayson, Anja Thieme, Alex Tay­lor, Geert Roumen, Camil­la Long­den, Sebas­t­ian Tschi­atschek, Rita Faia Mar­ques, Abi­gail Sell­en (2021) Social Sense­mak­ing with AI: Design­ing an Open-End­ed AI Expe­ri­ence with a Blind Child, Pro­ceed­ings of the 2021 CHI Con­fer­ence on Human Fac­tors in Com­put­ing Sys­tems, New York, NY, USA: Asso­ci­a­tion for Com­put­ing Machin­ery, pdf, doi:10.1145/3411764.3445290

Abstract
AI tech­nolo­gies are often used to aid peo­ple in per­form­ing dis­crete tasks with well-defined goals (e.g., recog­nis­ing faces in images). Emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies that pro­vide con­tin­u­ous, real-time infor­ma­tion enable more open-end­ed AI expe­ri­ences. In part­ner­ship with a blind child, we explore the chal­lenges and oppor­tu­ni­ties of design­ing human-AI inter­ac­tion for a sys­tem intend­ed to sup­port social sense­mak­ing. Adopt­ing a research-through-design per­spec­tive, we reflect upon work­ing with the uncer­tain capa­bil­i­ties of AI sys­tems in the design of this expe­ri­ence. We con­tribute: (i) a con­crete exam­ple of an open-end­ed AI sys­tem that enabled a blind child to extend his own capa­bil­i­ties; (ii) an illus­tra­tion of the delta between imag­ined and actu­al use, high­light­ing how capa­bil­i­ties derive from the human-AI inter­ac­tion and not the AI sys­tem alone; and (iii) a dis­cus­sion of design choic­es to craft an ongo­ing human-AI inter­ac­tion that address­es the chal­lenge of uncer­tain out­puts of AI systems. 
Social Sense­mak­ing with AI, CHI 2021 (198 downloads) 

Conference papers

Posted on by Alex Taylor
I’ve been slow to share papers here, so post­ing about two recent­ly pub­lished papers. With both pub­li­ca­tions it was a absolute joy and priv­i­lege to work with my co-authors.

Cyn­thia L Ben­nett, Daniela K Ros­ner, Alex S Tay­lor (2020) The Care Work of Access, CHI ’20, p. 1–15, New York, NY: ACM Press, pdf, doi:10.1145/3313831.3376568

Abstract
Cur­rent approach­es to AI and Assis­tive Tech­nol­o­gy (AT) often fore­ground task com­ple­tion over oth­er encoun­ters such as expres­sions of care. Our paper chal­lenges and com­ple­ments such task-com­ple­tion approach­es by attend­ing to the care work of access-the con­tin­u­al affec­tive and emo­tion­al adjust­ments that peo­ple make by notic­ing and attend­ing to one anoth­er. We explore how this work impacts encoun­ters among peo­ple with and with­out vision impair­ments who com­plete tasks togeth­er. We find that bound up in attempts to get things done are con­cerns for one anoth­er and how well peo­ple are doing togeth­er. Read­ing this work through emerg­ing dis­abil­i­ty stud­ies and fem­i­nist STS schol­ar­ship, we account for two impor­tant forms of work that give rise to access: (1) mun­dane attune­ments and (2) non-inno­cent autho­riza­tions. Togeth­er these process­es work as sen­si­tiz­ing con­cepts to help HCI schol­ars account for the ways that intel­li­gent ATs both pro­duce access while some­times sub­vert­ing peo­ple with disabilities.
The care work of access, CHI 2020 (569 downloads) 

Jes­si­ca L Feuston, Alex S Tay­lor, Anne Marie Piper (2020) Con­for­mi­ty of Eat­ing Dis­or­ders through Con­tent Mod­er­a­tion, Proc. ACM Hum.-Comput. Inter­act. 4(CSCW1), New York, NY, USA: Asso­ci­a­tion for Com­put­ing Machin­ery, pdf, doi:10.1145/3392845

Abstract
For indi­vid­u­als with men­tal ill­ness, social media plat­forms are con­sid­ered spaces for shar­ing and con­nec­tion. How­ev­er, not all expres­sions of men­tal ill­ness are treat­ed equal­ly on these plat­forms. Dif­fer­ent aggre­gates of human and tech­ni­cal con­trol are used to report and ban con­tent, accounts, and com­mu­ni­ties. Through two years of dig­i­tal ethnog­ra­phy, includ­ing online obser­va­tion and inter­views, with peo­ple with eat­ing dis­or­ders, we exam­ine the expe­ri­ence of con­tent mod­er­a­tion. We use a con­struc­tivist ground­ed the­o­ry approach to analy­sis that shows how prac­tices of mod­er­a­tion across dif­fer­ent plat­forms have par­tic­u­lar con­se­quences for mem­bers of mar­gin­al­ized groups, who are pres­sured to con­form and com­pelled to resist. Above all, we argue that plat­form mod­er­a­tion is enmeshed with wider process­es of con­for­mi­ty to spe­cif­ic ver­sions of men­tal ill­ness. Prac­tices of mod­er­a­tion reassert cer­tain bod­ies and expe­ri­ences as ‘nor­mal’ and val­ued, while reject­ing oth­ers. At the same time, nav­i­gat­ing and resist­ing these nor­ma­tive pres­sures fur­ther inscribes the mar­gin­al sta­tus of cer­tain indi­vid­u­als. We dis­cuss changes to the ways that plat­forms han­dle con­tent relat­ed to eat­ing dis­or­ders by draw­ing on the con­cept of mul­ti­plic­i­ty to inform design.
Con­for­mi­ty of eat­ing dis­or­ders, CSCW 2020 (533 downloads) 

Papers presented at CHI ’18

Posted on by Alex Taylor

Delight­ed to see the two great papers I con­tributed to being pre­sent­ed at CHI 2018 in Montreal.

Ari Schlesinger, Ken­ton O’Hara and Alex Tay­lor (2018) Lets Talk about Race: Iden­ti­ty, Chat­bots, and AI. In Pro­ceed­ings CHI ’18. ACM Press. 

pdf (1280 downloads)

Anja Thieme, Cyn­thia L. Ben­nett, Ceci­ly Mor­ri­son, Edward Cutrell and Alex Tay­lor (2018) “I can do every­thing but see!” – How Peo­ple with Vision Impair­ments Nego­ti­ate their Abil­i­ties in Social Con­texts. In Pro­ceed­ings CHI ’18. ACM Press. 

pdf (877 downloads)

Abstract — Why is it so hard for chat­bots to talk about race? This work explores how the biased con­tents of data­bas­es, the syn­tac­tic focus of nat­ur­al lan­guage pro­cess­ing, and the opaque nature of deep learn­ing algo­rithms cause chat­bots dif­fi­cul­ty in han­dling race-talk. In each of these areas, the ten­sions between race and chat­bots cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple and machines. By mak­ing the abstract and dis­parate qual­i­ties of this prob­lem space tan­gi­ble, we can devel­op chat­bots that are more capa­ble of han­dling race-talk in its many forms. Our goal is to pro­vide the HCI com­mu­ni­ty with ways to begin address­ing the ques­tion, how can chat­bots han­dle race-talk in new and improved ways?
Abstract — This research takes an ori­en­ta­tion to visu­al impair­ment (VI) that does not regard it as fixed or deter­mined alone in or through the body. Instead, we con­sid­er (dis)ability as pro­duced through inter­ac­tions with the envi­ron­ment and con­fig­ured by the peo­ple and tech­nol­o­gy with­in it. Specif­i­cal­ly, we explore how abil­i­ties become nego­ti­at­ed through video ethnog­ra­phy with six VI ath­letes and spec­ta­tors dur­ing the Rio 2016 Par­a­lympics. We use gen­er­at­ed in-depth exam­ples to iden­ti­fy how tech­nol­o­gy can be a mean­ing­ful part of abil­i­ty nego­ti­a­tions, empha­siz­ing how these embed into the social inter­ac­tions and lives of peo­ple with VI. In con­trast to treat­ing tech­nol­o­gy as a solu­tion to a ‘sen­so­ry deficit’, we under­stand it to sup­port the tri­an­gu­la­tion process of sense-mak­ing through pro­vi­sion of appro­pri­ate addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion. Fur­ther, we sug­gest that tech­nol­o­gy should not try and replace human assis­tance, but instead enable peo­ple with VI to bet­ter iden­ti­fy and inter­act with oth­er peo­ple in-situ.

CHI 2018 papers.

Posted on by Alex Taylor

Anja Thieme, Cyn­thia L. Ben­nett, Ceci­ly Mor­ri­son, Edward Cutrell and Alex Tay­lor (2018) “I can do every­thing but see!” – How Peo­ple with Vision Impair­ments Nego­ti­ate their Abil­i­ties in Social Con­texts. In Pro­ceed­ings CHI ’18. ACM Press. 

pdf (877 downloads)

Ari Schlesinger, Ken­ton O’Hara and Alex Tay­lor (2018) Lets Talk about Race: Iden­ti­ty, Chat­bots, and AI. In Pro­ceed­ings CHI ’18. ACM Press. 

pdf (1280 downloads)

Very hap­py to have con­tributed to two papers being pre­sent­ed at the upcom­ing CHI con­fer­ence this year. One reports on work with the blind and vision impaired a few of us have been involved in dif­fer­ent ways (see here). Broad­ly, we’ve used the piece to reflect on the rela­tions between vision impair­ment and arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, and set out direc­tions for a pos­si­ble design space.

The sec­ond paper picks up on a new theme for me, but one close­ly relat­ed to past reflec­tions and design work around machine intel­li­gence. With the fan­tas­tic Ari Schlesinger (GA Tech) lead­ing the research, we exam­ine the chal­lenges faced in han­dling race talk (and racism) in human-bot inter­ac­tions. Tak­ing both Tai AI and the black­list as start­ing points, we take seri­ous­ly the com­pu­ta­tion­al under­pin­nings of chat bots and con­ver­sa­tion­al agents, to under­score the role they have in sus­tain­ing trou­bling racial cat­e­gories and the con­di­tions they make pos­si­ble for more just and equi­table ways forward.

Abstract — This research takes an ori­en­ta­tion to visu­al impair­ment (VI) that does not regard it as fixed or deter­mined alone in or through the body. Instead, we con­sid­er (dis)ability as pro­duced through inter­ac­tions with the envi­ron­ment and con­fig­ured by the peo­ple and tech­nol­o­gy with­in it. Specif­i­cal­ly, we explore how abil­i­ties become nego­ti­at­ed through video ethnog­ra­phy with six VI ath­letes and spec­ta­tors dur­ing the Rio 2016 Par­a­lympics. We use gen­er­at­ed in-depth exam­ples to iden­ti­fy how tech­nol­o­gy can be a mean­ing­ful part of abil­i­ty nego­ti­a­tions, empha­siz­ing how these embed into the social inter­ac­tions and lives of peo­ple with VI. In con­trast to treat­ing tech­nol­o­gy as a solu­tion to a ‘sen­so­ry deficit’, we under­stand it to sup­port the tri­an­gu­la­tion process of sense-mak­ing through pro­vi­sion of appro­pri­ate addi­tion­al infor­ma­tion. Fur­ther, we sug­gest that tech­nol­o­gy should not try and replace human assis­tance, but instead enable peo­ple with VI to bet­ter iden­ti­fy and inter­act with oth­er peo­ple in-situ.
Abstract — Why is it so hard for chat­bots to talk about race? This work explores how the biased con­tents of data­bas­es, the syn­tac­tic focus of nat­ur­al lan­guage pro­cess­ing, and the opaque nature of deep learn­ing algo­rithms cause chat­bots dif­fi­cul­ty in han­dling race-talk. In each of these areas, the ten­sions between race and chat­bots cre­ate new oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple and machines. By mak­ing the abstract and dis­parate qual­i­ties of this prob­lem space tan­gi­ble, we can devel­op chat­bots that are more capa­ble of han­dling race-talk in its many forms. Our goal is to pro­vide the HCI com­mu­ni­ty with ways to begin address­ing the ques­tion, how can chat­bots han­dle race-talk in new and improved ways?

Re-making places

Posted on by Alex Taylor

At the CHI con­fer­ence this year, Clara Criv­el­laro pre­sent­ed this paper on our amaz­ing work at a regen­er­a­tion site on the out­skirts of Lon­don. The work touch­es on many issues that are impor­tant to me, from grass­roots par­tic­i­pa­tion and hous­ing to inven­tive meth­ods and techno­science’s pro­duc­tive possibilities.

Re-Mak­ing Places:
HCI, ‘Com­mu­ni­ty Build­ing’ and Change

Clara Criv­el­laro, Alex Tay­lor, Vasilis Vla­chokyr­i­akos, Rob Comber, Bet­ti­na Nis­sen, Peter Wright

Abstract
We present insights from an extend­ed engage­ment and design inter­ven­tion at an urban regen­er­a­tion site in SE Lon­don. We describe the process of design­ing a walk­ing trail and sys­tem for record­ing and play­ing back place-spe­cif­ic sto­ries for those liv­ing and work­ing on the hous­ing estate, and show how this is set with­in a wider con­text of urban renew­al, social/affordable hous­ing and “com­mu­ni­ty build­ing”. Like pri­or work, the research reveals the fric­tions that arise in par­tic­i­pa­to­ry engage­ments with het­ero­ge­neous actors. Here we illus­trate how mate­r­i­al inter­ven­tions can rearrange exist­ing spa­tial con­fig­u­ra­tions, mak­ing pro­duc­tive the plu­ral­i­ty of accounts intrin­sic in com­mu­ni­ty life. Through this, we pro­vide an ori­en­ta­tion to HCI and design inter­ven­tions that are con­cerned with civic engage­ment and par­tic­i­pa­tion in process­es of mak­ing places.

on “Leakiness and creepiness in app space”

Posted on by Alex Taylor

I recent­ly had an email exchange with Iri­na Shklovs­ki in which she kind­ly sent me the paper she pre­sent­ed at the CHI con­fer­ence this year. It’s a great paper, with some care­ful­ly thought through insights into the data we pro­duce and (often inad­ver­tent­ly) share when using smart phones. 

Iri­na Shklovs­ki, Scott D. Main­war­ing, Hal­la Hrund Skúladót­tir, and Höskul­dur Borgth­ors­son. 2014. Leak­i­ness and creepi­ness in app space: per­cep­tions of pri­va­cy and mobile app use. In Pro­ceed­ings of the 32nd annu­al ACM con­fer­ence on Human fac­tors in com­put­ing sys­tems (CHI ’14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2347–2356. 

The paper got me think­ing about some broad­er (and long-stand­ing) issues I’ve been work­ing through myself relat­ed to the researcher’s agen­tial (and often inad­ver­tent) role in empir­i­cal research. What fol­lows are some slight­ly amend­ed com­ments I’ve shared with Iri­na. (more…)

Short note on ‘Objects, Infrastructure and Vocation’

Posted on by Alex Taylor

infrastructure+vocation
Infra­struc­ture and Voca­tion: Field, Call­ing and Com­pu­ta­tion in Ecology
A bril­liant CHI paper by Steven Jack­son and Sarah Bar­brow. How many papers pre­sent­ed at CHI cite St. Augus­tine of Hip­po and, to boot, suc­ceed in draw­ing out rel­e­vant reflec­tions on sci­en­tif­ic mod­el­ling tools in ecol­o­gy. See­ing ecol­o­gy through the lens of both infra­struc­ture and the ‘voca­tion­al call­ing’ pro­vides a pro­duc­tive view onto what ecol­o­gists do and how their prac­tices are chang­ing. Jack­son and Bar­brow illus­trate this nice­ly by writ­ing of the chang­ing notion of ‘the field’ for ecol­o­gists. I see a strong par­al­lel here between ecol­o­gy and biol­o­gy. Biol­o­gy is a field very much in tran­si­tion and the changes have much to do with the mate­r­i­al encoun­ters in bio­log­i­cal work — with for exam­ple the chang­ing nature of biol­o­gists’ work at ‘the bench’ and with exper­i­men­tal appa­ra­tus. The turn to machines, com­pu­ta­tion and algo­rithms is not only reshap­ing the prac­tices but also refig­ur­ing what biol­o­gists know and how they see their phe­nom­e­na (some­thing we also tried to get across in At the inter­face of biol­o­gy and com­pu­ta­tion at CHI). A sim­i­lar con­clu­sion is being drawn out in this papers as it cap­tures the entan­gled rela­tions between the tools, prac­tices and ways of know­ing in ecology.