Design revolutions: IASDR 2019 Conference Proceedings. Volume 4: Learning, Technology, Thinking

In September 2019 Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University was honoured to host the bi-annual conference of the International Association of Societies of Design Research (IASDR) under the unifying theme of DESIGN REVOLUTIONS. This was the first time the conference had been held in the UK. Through key research themes across nine conference tracks – Change, Learning, Living, Making, People, Technology, Thinking, Value and Voices – the conference opened up compelling, meaningful and radical dialogue of the role of design in addressing societal and organisational challenges. This Volume 4 includes papers from Learning, Technology and Thinking tracks of the conference

Fiction and its objects

This thesis develops a metaphysics of fictional objects that is embedded in a theory of fictional practice and maximally preserves the meanings of our fictional utterances. I begin by asking two questions: How can it be true of a fictional object such as Dune's Paul Atreides that he was born on the planet Caladan to the Lady Jessica (an intrafictional claim), that he was created on Earth by Frank Herbert (an extrafictional claim), and that he does not exist (a nonexistence claim)? If one or more of these is not true, then what is the nature of our assent to these three types of propositions about fictional objects? I argue that fiction's social nature and its basis in imaginative acts provides us with a dualist account of fictional objects: 'Paul Atreides' in the intrafictional and nonexistence claims refers to merely possible people while 'Paul Atreides' in extrafictional claims refers to an actual abstract artifact. I defend imagination's central role in fiction and argue that it's a norm of imagination that it models possibilities. I then define fiction as a social practice necessarily consisting in 1) acts of social imagining, 2) agreement maintained by implicit principles, 3) an aesthetic function or aim, and 4) the creation of abstract artifacts through which it achieves that aim. The result is that intrafictional claims are not assertions about the actual world, but expressions of imaginings that have as their intentional objects possible objects and states of affairs. Extrafictional claims are assertions about the actual abstract artifacts created by fictional practice that bear a picking out relation to the possibilia of fictive imaginings. Finally, nonexistence claims are assertions about the possibilia of our fictive imaginings - assertions that they are not actual. I defend the compatibility of these artifactualist and possibilist accounts and show how their union under the umbrella of a full theory of fiction both explains their intuitive appeal and solves the major issues they encounter individually

Information Outlook, September 2004

Volume 8, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2004/1008/thumbnail.jp

Information Outlook, September 2004

Volume 8, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2004/1008/thumbnail.jp

Information Outlook, September 2004

Volume 8, Issue 9https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_io_2004/1008/thumbnail.jp

Building bridges for better machines : from machine ethics to machine explainability and back

Be it nursing robots in Japan, self-driving buses in Germany or automated hiring systems in the USA, complex artificial computing systems have become an indispensable part of our everyday lives. Two major challenges arise from this development: machine ethics and machine explainability. Machine ethics deals with behavioral constraints on systems to ensure restricted, morally acceptable behavior; machine explainability affords the means to satisfactorily explain the actions and decisions of systems so that human users can understand these systems and, thus, be assured of their socially beneficial effects. Machine ethics and explainability prove to be particularly efficient only in symbiosis. In this context, this thesis will demonstrate how machine ethics requires machine explainability and how machine explainability includes machine ethics. We develop these two facets using examples from the scenarios above. Based on these examples, we argue for a specific view of machine ethics and suggest how it can be formalized in a theoretical framework. In terms of machine explainability, we will outline how our proposed framework, by using an argumentation-based approach for decision making, can provide a foundation for machine explanations. Beyond the framework, we will also clarify the notion of machine explainability as a research area, charting its diverse and often confusing literature. To this end, we will outline what, exactly, machine explainability research aims to accomplish. Finally, we will use all these considerations as a starting point for developing evaluation criteria for good explanations, such as comprehensibility, assessability, and fidelity. Evaluating our framework using these criteria shows that it is a promising approach and augurs to outperform many other explainability approaches that have been developed so far.DFG: CRC 248: Center for Perspicuous Computing; VolkswagenStiftung: Explainable Intelligent System

Case board, traces, & chicanes: Diagrams for an archaeology of algorithmic prediction through critical design practice

This PhD thesis utilises diagrams as a language for research and design practice to critically investigate algorithmic prediction. As a tool for practice-based research, the language of diagrams is presented as a way to read algorithmic prediction as a set of intricate computational geometries, and to write it through critical practice immersed in the very materials in question: data and code. From a position rooted in graphic and interaction design, the research uses diagrams to gain purchase on algorithmic prediction, making it available for examination, experimentation, and critique. The project is framed by media archaeology, used here as a methodology through which both the technical and historical "depths" of algorithmic systems are excavated. My main research question asks: How can diagrams be used as a language to critically investigate algorithmic prediction through design practice? This thesis presents two secondary questions for critical examination, asking: Through which mechanisms does thinking/writing/designing in diagrammatic terms inform research and practice focused on algorithmic prediction? As algorithmic systems claim to produce objective knowledge, how can diagrams be used as instruments for speculative and/or conjectural knowledge production? I contextualise my research by establishing three registers of relations between diagrams and algorithmic prediction. These are identified as: Data Diagrams to describe the algorithmic forms and processes through which data are turned into predictions; Control Diagrams to afford critical perspectives on algorithmic prediction, framing the latter as an apparatus of prescription and control; and Speculative Diagrams to open up opportunities for reclaiming the generative potential of computation. These categories form the scaffolding for the three practice-oriented chapters where I evidence a range of meaningful ways to investigate algorithmic prediction through diagrams. This includes, the 'case board' where I unpack some of the historical genealogies of algorithmic prediction. A purpose-built graph application materialises broader reflections about how such genealogies might be conceptualised, and facilitates a visual and subjective mode of knowledge production. I then move to producing 'traces', namely probing the output of an algorithmic prediction system|in this case YouTube recommendations. Traces, and the purpose-built instruments used to visualise them, interrogate both the mechanisms of algorithmic capture and claims to make these mechanisms transparent through data visualisations. Finally, I produce algorithmic predictions and examine the diagrammatic "tricks," or 'chicanes', that this involves. I revisit a historical prototype for algorithmic prediction, the almanac publication, and use it to question the boundaries between data-science and divination. This is materialised through a new version of the almanac - an automated publication where algorithmic processes are used to produce divinatory predictions. My original contribution to knowledge is an approach to practice-based research which draws from media archaeology and focuses on diagrams to investigate algorithmic prediction through design practice. I demonstrate to researchers and practitioners with interests in algorithmic systems, prediction, and/or speculation, that diagrams can be used as a language to engage critically with these themes

From BookTok to Bookshelf: Algorithms and Book Recommendations on TikTok

TikTok, a social media platform focused on short-form videos, is gaining a reputation for renewing interest in books (Bateman 2022; Harris 2021). While reviewing and recommending books is not new, the ability to do so on a large scale used to be limited to a select group of critics. Social media allows readers to voice their opinions, and by gaining followings these readers can then influence at a similar scale as traditional reviewers. This raises various questions as to how culture is created and curated. Today, this curation is done largely by algorithms through recommending and promoting content. The rise of BookTok emphasizes this, combining recommendations with TikTok’s algorithm to boost the popularity of certain books. In particular, BookTok has made headlines by repeatedly raising backlist books back onto the bestseller lists. This increases the shift from traditional curators of culture to a community of fellow readers, which can in turn popularize specific genres. Thus, the main question this thesis aims to answer is: what distinguishes BookTok from other digital platforms, enabling it to have such a cultural impact going beyond the online book community? The BookTok phenomenon will be explained by using a mixed-method approach looking at how creators use platform affordances, aesthetic features, and their algorithmic imaginaries to appeal to both users and the TikTok algorithm. The data used in this thesis consists of 148 BookTok videos gathered over a two-week period from the “For You” page. A content analysis was conducted to find patterns in the construction of the videos, the use of specific aesthetic features, and the selection of recommended book titles. Based on this data, it was possible to detect and describe different genres of BookTok videos and to identify the use of relevant platform affordances. This was complemented by a thematic analysis of interviews with three video creators, selected from the authors of the material in the dataset. The interviews gave insight into the algorithmic imaginary of the creators and how the construction of the algorithm informs the creative process. The analysis showed that while the algorithm is what makes the recommendations popular by distributing them to a receptive audience, the TikTok format is what makes the recommendations memorable and has a positive impact on book sales. As the algorithm informs every aspect of the book recommendations, from the creator’s decisions of picking a certain book to the decisions on when to make the video and who the algorithm subsequently recommends the video to, the book recommendations on BookTok can be examined as examples of algorithmic curation. By taking up the topic of literature and literary readership from a digital culture perspective, this thesis aims to contribute to the greater discussions on algorithms, personalization, and its’ effect on cultural production and curation.Master's Thesis in Digital CultureDIKULT350MAHF-DIKU

A Social Dimension for Digital Architectural Practice

Merged with duplicate record 10026.1/1296 on 14.03.2017 by CS (TIS)This thesis proceeds from an analysis of practice and critical commentary to claim that the opportunities presented to some architectural practices by the advent of ubiquitous digital technology have not been properly exploited. The missed opportunities, it claims, can be attributed largely to the retention of a model of time and spaces as discrete design parameters, which is inappropriate in the context of the widening awareness of social interconnectedness that digital technology has also facilitated. As a remedy, the thesis shows that some social considerations essential to good architecture - which could have been more fully integrated in practice and theory more than a decade ago - can now be usefully revisited through a systematic reflection on an emerging use of web technologies that support social navigation. The thesis argues through its text and a number of practical projects that the increasing confidence and sophistication of interdisciplinary studies in geography, most notably in human geography, combined with the technological opportunities of social navigation, provide a useful model of time and space as a unified design parameter. In so doing the thesis suggests new possibilities for architectural practices involving social interaction. Through a literature review of the introduction and development of digital technologies to architectural practice, the thesis identifies the inappropriate persistence of a number of overarching concepts informing architectural practice. In a review of the emergence and growth of 'human geography' it elaborates on the concept of the social production of space, which it relates to an analysis of emerging social navigation technologies. In so doing the thesis prepares the way for an integration of socially aware architecture with the opportunities offered by social computing. To substantiate its claim the thesis includes a number of practical public projects that have been specifically designed to extend and amplify certain concepts, along with a large-scale design project and systematic analysis which is intended to illustrate the theoretical claim and provide a model for further practical exploitation

Encounters with algorithmic systems, through the game metaphor

This dissertation applies the game metaphor, supplemented with frame analysis, to examine encounters with algorithmic systems (interconnected combinations of elements such as code, people, and data). With Erving Goffman’s work on games and frames as a theoretical basis, the dissertation illustrates how encounters with algorithmic systems can be approached as relational processes wherein diverse actors, working together and against each other, construct the games they play. The moves they make in relation to each other, along with the technologies present in the situation, alter and uphold the frames articulating what the game is about. The dissertation comprises a summary introduction and three peer-reviewed articles. Two of these discuss encounters with systems that personalise content for users, in one setting also considering the perspective of the main designer of the system under scrutiny. The final study reported upon focused on a model designed to identify hate speech from municipal-election candidates’ social-media posts. It considers perspectives of both the system’s creators and opponents of the model. The main findings from the research are that 1) metaphorical games can be created and altered via various moves, including those made with or by algorithmic systems; 2) particular frames of games are separated from the surrounding reality by spatio-temporal brackets that support frame-specific meanings; 3) individuals may play for others or enrol others to play for them, with what it means to win or lose hinging on who is playing, for what and whom; and 4) controlling what is visible to a specific player is especially important in games that include algorithms, since algorithms cannot understand most changes in the frame of activity. The dissertation illustrates the game metaphor’s utility for studying how algorithmic systems’ meanings and roles in a given situation are defined and redefined in interaction. Additionally, combining the game metaphor (especially the concept of a move) with frame analysis reveals how frames are defined in interaction. This approach offers a contrast against approaches wherein frames are presumed to be static constructs that individuals can find and identify in the world. The empirical findings and conceptual contributions provide ways of understanding algorithmic systems as part of our day-to-day relationships, where the meanings they gain depend upon the situation wherein they are encountered.Tutkin tässä väitöskirjassa kohtaamisia algoritmisten järjestelmien kanssa. Algoritmisilla järjestelmillä viittaan yhdistelmiin erilaisista osista kuten koodi, ihmiset ja data. Pohjaten Erving Goffmanin työhön pelien ja kehysanalyysin parissa väitöskirja havainnollistaa, miten kohtaamisia algoritmisten järjestelmien kanssa voidaan lähestyä relationaalisina prosesseina. Näissä prosesseissa erilaiset toimijat rakentavat pelejä, joita he pelaavat toimien sekä yhteistyössä toistensa kanssa että toisiaan vastaan. Väitöskirja koostuu yhteenvedosta ja kolmesta vertaisarvioidusta artikkelista. Kaksi artikkeleista käsittelee kohtaamisia sellaisten järjestelmien kanssa, jotka personoivat sisältöä käyttäjilleen. Molemmissa artikkeleissa tutkitaan käyttäjiä, mutta toinen näistä artikkeleista ammentaa myös järjestelmän pääkehittäjän näkemyksistä. Yksi artikkeleista puolestaan keskittyy malliin, jolla pyrittiin tunnistamaan vihapuhetta kunnallisvaaliehdokkaiden sosiaalisen median julkaisuista. Artikkelissa käsitellään sekä mallin kehittäjien että sitä vastustavien ihmisten näkemyksiä. Väitöstutkimukseni päälöydökset ovat seuraavanlaiset: 1) vertauskuvallisia pelejä voidaan luoda ja muuttaa erilaisten liikkeiden kautta; 2) eri kehyksillä on ajallisia ja tilallisia sulkeita, jotka toimivat niiden ja niitä ympäröivän todellisuuden välisinä rajoina ja tukevat kehyksen sisäisiä merkityksiä; 3) yksilöt voivat pelata myös muiden puolesta ja saada muita pelaamaan omasta puolestaan, ja se, mitä voittaminen tai häviäminen tarkoittaa, riippuu siitä kuka pelaa minkäkin puolesta; ja 4) sen hallitseminen mitä näkyy kullekin pelaajalle on erityisen tärkeää peleissä, joissa on mukana algoritmeja, sillä ne eivät kykene ymmärtämään muutoksia toiminnan kehyksessä samalla tavoin kuin ihmiset pystyvät. Tämä väitöskirja havainnollistaa pelimetaforan hyödyllisyyttä sen tutkimisessa, miten algoritmisten järjestelmien merkityksiä ja rooleja määritellään ja uudelleenmääritellään vuorovaikutuksessa sekä ihmisten että järjestelmien kanssa. Tämän lisäksi pelimetaforan (ja erityisesti liikkeen käsitteen) yhdistäminen kehysanalyysiin korostaa, miten kehyksiä määritetään vuorovaikutuksessa. Tämä lähestymistapa toimii vastapainona näkemyksille, joissa kehysten ajatellaan olevan staattisia asioita, joita ihmiset löytävät maailmasta ja käyttävät maailman ymmärtämiseen. Väitöskirjan empiiriset ja käsitteelliset löydökset tarjoavat tapoja algoritmisten järjestelmien ymmärtämiseen osana päivittäistä elämäämme ja suhteitamme, joissa nämä järjestelmät saavat erilaisia merkityksiä riippuen tilanteista, joissa niitä kohdataan