Month: Feb 2020

The Art, Science and Technology of Responsive Media

We are all used to following sat navs or asking Google for directions. Indeed, lots of people have welcomed Google and Alexa into their homes to ask questions, control the lights and even order their shopping. But responsive media is still a very young industry. 

Responsive media is any media that responds to a set of variables, for example, a sat nav responds according to where the user is and where they want to go. We are at the very beginning of discovering what responsive media can do and how it might influence and disrupt the way we live. This means that, at the moment, many of the approaches to responsive media design are focused on novelty and exploration rather than creating something really useful! Designers are creating the building blocks for future technologies.

Our speaker, Phil Stenton worked in responsive media for most of his career, though, like most creatives, he didn’t quite know it at the time! Design often works by having one idea and then another and another – you can see the beginnings of responsive media only by looking back. 

Mark Weisner was a central figure in the move towards responsive media. In 1988, he pioneered the idea of ubiquitous technology, moving away from the shackles of the desktop and beginning to consider wearable technology – even if those wearables were enormous at the time! 

Together with John Seely Brown, Mark Weisner wrote Designing Calm Technology, a paper which outlines the ways in which computers can move to the periphery of our attention. The purpose of this is to allow people to interact with computers more casually and crucially, on a more natural, human level. For example, asking Google or Alexa a question verbally replicates asking another person – you don’t need to sit down in a specific seat to load up a computer to open a tab to type in the question. This is a perfect example of how responsive media is beginning to influence our lives and interactions with technology. 

If you would like to read more about Calm Technology, Amber Case brings these ideas into the 21st century in her book of the same name. 

Over his career, Phil has experimented with various kinds of responsive media. One awesome example was the 1831 RIOT! App. This immersive audio app allowed people to wander around Queen Square in Bristol listening in on conversations happening around them, effectively recreating the 1831 riot. The intrigue of this project is that not everyone will have the same experience while moving around the square. Some people will overhear conversations that others will miss simply because they weren’t in the right place at the right time. The result is that those who participated in the experience came away with plenty to talk about! 

An updated version of the app is still available on Google Play if you fancy giving it a go. 

Of course, now that responsive media is moving into the home, we are beginning to feel more cautious about how and why we use it. While we tend to like the novelty of responsive media, when an object starts to collect personal data in order to refine the responsivity, several ethical questions arise. 

One example Phil gave was responsive media for kids. While giving children an opportunity to talk to technology and influence what and how they learn, there is also a worry that children could give away too much personal data or don’t understand exactly what is happening. At this point, responsive media steps up to and over the line between useful and creepy – a line that we discussed at our Future of the Book meet-up a while ago. Writers are already capitalising on the creepiness of responsive media to write ghost stories! 

So what is the future of responsive media going to look like?

To be honest, we can’t be sure. As responsive media is such a young industry, there are a lot of questions left to be answered. How much data are we willing to share for convenience? How do we want to interact with technology? To what extent do designers need to reimagine their roles to incorporate external factors such as location? 

Answering these questions will be central as responsive media matures and it will be exciting to see what sort of solutions the industry puts forward. 

Listen to the Full Talk

Reading List to Take Home

Designing Calm Technology, Mark Weisner and John Seely Brown

Calm Technology, Amber Case 

Our Next Event:

The Future of Synthesised Realities: Seeing != Believing 

https://www.meetup.com/Manchester-Futurists/events/268861960/

The Future of Personal Data: Designing a “Qualified Self”

Data is everywhere and your personal data is probably a greater commodity than you realise. We are all used to the idea that Facebook, Google and Amazon, amongst others, collect personal data in order to create targeted ads and we are aware that personal data can impact a wide range of issues. But most of us don’t seem to realise that we too can use our personal data to our advantage. 

In our first talk of 2020, researchers at Lancaster University introduced us to new ideas and research surrounding the data collection industry. Working with several volunteers, including MCR Futurists Ian and Hannah, the team have built up a series of data collecting devices aiming to unpack the nature of personal data collection and what it means to the people collecting it. 

The evening was designed to be similar to an Apple presentation. Georgia (another MCR Futurist!) first presented a design fiction intended to provoke the volunteers and inspire new thinking about personal data. The design fiction was based on the idea that the NHS could bring out health-based implants to collect data. People would be able to pay to avoid allowing 3rd parties to access their data (which would be used in research) but they could also access the tech for free if they were willing to share. 

This design fiction naturally infuriated the volunteers during their first workshop! Issues of privacy and the problem with allowing wealth to be a differentiating factor in data collection were hotly contested during a lengthy discussion at the workshop. 

But the main point of the design fiction was to get the ball rolling and figure out which features and attributes are most important when designing a method for data collection. Privacy was, perhaps, the most discussed issue, particularly as people have become more aware of the compromises they are making everyday without really thinking about it. From here, the research team created a number of prototypes – one for each volunteer – based on their priorities and interests. 

While each prototype spoke to an individual volunteer, the Lancaster team then wanted to combine elements of each, essentially asking where the volunteers would compromise. Then the process started again with the researchers producing a further two prototypes from the discussions they had with the volunteers. 

Seeing the prototypes in action was a great chance to see the design process and the imaginative ways that the researchers have interpreted the needs of their volunteers. After the talk, it was also interesting to see the audience going to handle the objects and ask questions about their use. Indeed, the research team didn’t waste the opportunity to gather more opinions and quizzed the group to find out what they thought. 

Georgia said, “we had a great time presenting to the Manchester Futurists who really engaged with our work and asked a lot of interesting questions too. Definitely a fun group to present to!”

 

Listen to the Full Talk

Reading List to Take Home

The Quantified Self, Deborah Lupton

Sites to Visit

www.sensemake.org

Who to Follow

@Designinf

@ImaginationLanc


Our Next Event:

The Future of Personal Data: Designing a ‘Qualified Self’ 

https://www.meetup.com/Manchester-Futurists/events/268110086/

Audio podcast [1]: Rosie Campbell’s Fireside Chat

Rosie and Ahmed cofounded Manchester Futurists in early 2017 while working together at the BBC. A year later, Rosie waved goodbye to the UK and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to become Assistant Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI), a technical AI safety research team at UC Berkeley. Recently, she joined the Partnership on AI (PAI) to lead research programs on beneficial AI strategy, spanning areas such as responsible publication practices, explainability in AI systems, and benchmarking techniques for safety and fairness.

In this fireside chat, Rosie and Ahmed will cover a range of topics such as:

  • What it’s like to move from Manchester to California
  • The latest thinking on AGI and transformative AI
  • Research at PAI, CHAI, and beyond
  • Productivity, mental models, systems, and optimization
  • Questions from the audience

Rosie Campbell is a Program Lead at the Partnership on AI (PAI) in San Francisco. She is interested in the safe development of AI for the long-term flourishing of humanity, and was recently named one of ‘100 Brilliant Women to follow in AI Ethics’.

Previously, Rosie was the Assistant Director of the Center for Human-Compatible AI (CHAI) at UC Berkeley, and continues to advise the group on strategy and operations. Before that, Rosie worked as a Research Engineer at BBC R&D, a multidisciplinary research lab based in Manchester and London. There, she worked on emerging technologies for broadcasting, including an award-winning project exploring the use of AI in media production.

Rosie holds a Master’s in Computer Science and a Bachelor’s in Physics, and also has academic experience in Philosophy and Machine Learning. She is fascinated by emerging tech, society, and the future, and cofounded Manchester Futurists to explore these issues. Rosie is also a productivity nerd and enjoys thinking and writing about how to optimize systems, and how to use reason and evidence to improve the world using the framework of Effective Altruism.