Using voice assistant skills in family life

Voice assistants are increasingly prevalent in family life, being used, for example, for listening to music, finding out information, asking jokes and playing games together. However, little research shows how such technology influences dynamic family interactions in the home over time. An in-the-wild study was conducted in six family homes over three weeks. An Alexa, with a number of skills, was set up in each home for the families to use. The findings showed differences in use over time. To begin, family cohesion behavior and family rituals were most prevalent. At the end of the study, the skills were found to motivate distinct family interaction patterns: including more collaboration to manage Alexa and scaffolding of children’s interactions with Alexa, given developmental differences in users’ grasp of Alexa’s capabilities and limitations. We discuss how voice assistants support different interaction patterns and potentially, offer different learning opportunities

Wearable and mobile devices

Information and Communication Technologies, known as ICT, have undergone dramatic changes in the last 25 years. The 1980s was the decade of the Personal Computer (PC), which brought computing into the home and, in an educational setting, into the classroom. The 1990s gave us the World Wide Web (the Web), building on the infrastructure of the Internet, which has revolutionized the availability and delivery of information. In the midst of this information revolution, we are now confronted with a third wave of novel technologies (i.e., mobile and wearable computing), where computing devices already are becoming small enough so that we can carry them around at all times, and, in addition, they have the ability to interact with devices embedded in the environment. The development of wearable technology is perhaps a logical product of the convergence between the miniaturization of microchips (nanotechnology) and an increasing interest in pervasive computing, where mobility is the main objective. The miniaturization of computers is largely due to the decreasing size of semiconductors and switches; molecular manufacturing will allow for “not only molecular-scale switches but also nanoscale motors, pumps, pipes, machinery that could mimic skin” (Page, 2003, p. 2). This shift in the size of computers has obvious implications for the human-computer interaction introducing the next generation of interfaces. Neil Gershenfeld, the director of the Media Lab’s Physics and Media Group, argues, “The world is becoming the interface. Computers as distinguishable devices will disappear as the objects themselves become the means we use to interact with both the physical and the virtual worlds” (Page, 2003, p. 3). Ultimately, this will lead to a move away from desktop user interfaces and toward mobile interfaces and pervasive computing

AI Extenders: The Ethical and Societal Implications of Humans Cognitively Extended by AI

Humans and AI systems are usually portrayed as separate sys- tems that we need to align in values and goals. However, there is a great deal of AI technology found in non-autonomous systems that are used as cognitive tools by humans. Under the extended mind thesis, the functional contributions of these tools become as essential to our cognition as our brains. But AI can take cognitive extension towards totally new capabil- ities, posing new philosophical, ethical and technical chal- lenges. To analyse these challenges better, we define and place AI extenders in a continuum between fully-externalized systems, loosely coupled with humans, and fully-internalized processes, with operations ultimately performed by the brain, making the tool redundant. We dissect the landscape of cog- nitive capabilities that can foreseeably be extended by AI and examine their ethical implications. We suggest that cognitive extenders using AI be treated as distinct from other cognitive enhancers by all relevant stakeholders, including developers, policy makers, and human users

Embedding Intelligence. Designerly reflections on AI-infused products

Artificial intelligence is more-or-less covertly entering our lives and houses, embedded into products and services that are acquiring novel roles and agency on users. Products such as virtual assistants represent the first wave of materializa- tion of artificial intelligence in the domestic realm and beyond. They are new interlocutors in an emerging redefined relationship between humans and computers. They are agents, with miscommunicated or unclear proper- ties, performing actions to reach human-set goals. They embed capabilities that industrial products never had. They can learn users’ preferences and accordingly adapt their responses, but they are also powerful means to shape people’s behavior and build new practices and habits. Nevertheless, the way these products are used is not fully exploiting their potential, and frequently they entail poor user experiences, relegating their role to gadgets or toys. Furthermore, AI-infused products need vast amounts of personal data to work accurately, and the gathering and processing of this data are often obscure to end-users. As well, how, whether, and when it is preferable to implement AI in products and services is still an open debate. This condition raises critical ethical issues about their usage and may dramatically impact users’ trust and, ultimately, the quality of user experience. The design discipline and the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field are just beginning to explore the wicked relationship between Design and AI, looking for a definition of its borders, still blurred and ever-changing. The book approaches this issue from a human-centered standpoint, proposing designerly reflections on AI-infused products. It addresses one main guiding question: what are the design implications of embedding intelligence into everyday objects

Qualitative evaluation of media device orchestration for immersive spatial audio reproduction

The challenge of installing and setting up dedicated spatial audio systems can make it difficult to deliver immersive listening experiences to the general public. However, the proliferation of smart mobile devices and the rise of the Internet of Things mean that there are increasing numbers of connected devices capable of producing audio in the home. \Media device orchestration" (MDO) is the concept of utilizing an ad hoc set of devices to deliver or augment a media experience. In this paper, the concept is evaluated by implementing MDO for augmented spatial audio reproduction using object-based audio with semantic metadata. A thematic analysis of positive and negative listener comments about the system revealed three main categories of response: perceptual, technical, and content-dependent aspects. MDO performed particularly well in terms of immersion/envelopment, but the quality of listening experience was partly dependent on loudspeaker quality and listener position. Suggestions for further development based on these categories are given

Exploring Qualitative Research Using LLMs

The advent of AI driven large language models (LLMs) have stirred discussions about their role in qualitative research. Some view these as tools to enrich human understanding, while others perceive them as threats to the core values of the discipline. This study aimed to compare and contrast the comprehension capabilities of humans and LLMs. We conducted an experiment with small sample of Alexa app reviews, initially classified by a human analyst. LLMs were then asked to classify these reviews and provide the reasoning behind each classification. We compared the results with human classification and reasoning. The research indicated a significant alignment between human and ChatGPT 3.5 classifications in one third of cases, and a slightly lower alignment with GPT4 in over a quarter of cases. The two AI models showed a higher alignment, observed in more than half of the instances. However, a consensus across all three methods was seen only in about one fifth of the classifications. In the comparison of human and LLMs reasoning, it appears that human analysts lean heavily on their individual experiences. As expected, LLMs, on the other hand, base their reasoning on the specific word choices found in app reviews and the functional components of the app itself. Our results highlight the potential for effective human LLM collaboration, suggesting a synergistic rather than competitive relationship. Researchers must continuously evaluate LLMs role in their work, thereby fostering a future where AI and humans jointly enrich qualitative research

Smartphones

Many of the research approaches to smartphones actually regard them as more or less transparent points of access to other kinds of communication experiences. That is, rather than considering the smartphone as something in itself, the researchers look at how individuals use the smartphone for their communicative purposes, whether these be talking, surfing the web, using on-line data access for off-site data sources, downloading or uploading materials, or any kind of interaction with social media. They focus not so much on the smartphone itself but on the activities that people engage in with their smartphones

Voicing Kinship with Machines: Diffractive Empathetic Listening to Synthetic Voices in Performance.

This thesis contributes to the field of voice studies by analyzing the design and production of synthetic voices in performance. The work explores six case studies, consisting of different performative experiences of the last decade (2010- 2020) that featured synthetic voice design. It focusses on the political and social impact of synthetic voices, starting from yet challenging the concepts of voice in the machine and voice of the machine. The synthetic voices explored are often playing the role of simulated artificial intelligences, therefore this thesis expands its questions towards technology at large. The analysis of the case studies follows new materialist and posthumanist premises, yet it tries to confute the patriarchal and neoliberal approach towards technological development through feminist and de-colonial approaches, developing a taxonomy for synthetic voices in performance. Chapter 1 introduces terms and explains the taxonomy. Chapter 2 looks at familiar representations of fictional AI. Chapter 3 introduces headphone theatre exploring immersive practices. Chapters 4 and 5 engage with chatbots. Chapter 6 goes in depth exploring Human and Artificial Intelligence interaction, whereas chapter 7 moves slightly towards music production and live art. The body of the thesis includes the work of Pipeline Theatre, Rimini Protokoll, Annie Dorsen, Begüm Erciyas, and Holly Herndon. The analysis is informed by posthumanism, feminism, and performance studies, starting from my own practice as sound designer and singer, looking at aesthetics of reproduction, audience engagement, and voice composition. This thesis has been designed to inspire and provoke practitioners and scholars to explore synthetic voices further, question predominant biases of binarism and acknowledge their importance in redefining technology

Designing Sound for Social Robots: Advancing Professional Practice through Design Principles

Sound is one of the core modalities social robots can use to communicate with the humans around them in rich, engaging, and effective ways. While a robot's auditory communication happens predominantly through speech, a growing body of work demonstrates the various ways non-verbal robot sound can affect humans, and researchers have begun to formulate design recommendations that encourage using the medium to its full potential. However, formal strategies for successful robot sound design have so far not emerged, current frameworks and principles are largely untested and no effort has been made to survey creative robot sound design practice. In this dissertation, I combine creative practice, expert interviews, and human-robot interaction studies to advance our understanding of how designers can best ideate, create, and implement robot sound. In a first step, I map out a design space that combines established sound design frameworks with insights from interviews with robot sound design experts. I then systematically traverse this space across three robot sound design explorations, investigating (i) the effect of artificial movement sound on how robots are perceived, (ii) the benefits of applying compositional theory to robot sound design, and (iii) the role and potential of spatially distributed robot sound. Finally, I implement the designs from prior chapters into humanoid robot Diamandini, and deploy it as a case study. Based on a synthesis of the data collection and design practice conducted across the thesis, I argue that the creation of robot sound is best guided by four design perspectives: fiction (sound as a means to convey a narrative), composition (sound as its own separate listening experience), plasticity (sound as something that can vary and adapt over time), and space (spatial distribution of sound as a separate communication channel). The conclusion of the thesis presents these four perspectives and proposes eleven design principles across them which are supported by detailed examples. This work contributes an extensive body of design principles, process models, and techniques providing researchers and designers with new tools to enrich the way robots communicate with humans