Animal-Computer Interaction: the emergence of a discipline

In this editorial to the IJHCS Special Issue on Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI), we provide an overview of the state-of-the-art in this emerging field, outlining the main scientific interests of its developing community, in a broader cultural context of evolving human-animal relations. We summarise the core aims proposed for the development of ACI as a discipline, discussing the challenges these pose and how ACI researchers are trying to address them. We then introduce the contributions to the Special Issue, showing how they illustrate some of the key issues that characterise the current state-of-the-art in ACI, and finally reflect on how the journey ahead towards developing an ACI discipline could be undertaken

Gaming Algorithmic Hate-Speech Detection : Stakes, Parties, and Moves

A recent strand of research considers how algorithmic systems are gamed in everyday encounters. We add to this literature with a study that uses the game metaphor to examine a project where different organizations came together to create and deploy a machine learning model to detect hate speech from political candidates’ social media messages during the Finnish 2017 municipal election. Using interviews and forum discussions as our primary research material, we illustrate how the unfolding game is played out on different levels in a multi-stakeholder situation, what roles different participants have in the game, and how strategies of gaming the model revolve around controlling the information available to it. We discuss strategies that different stakeholders planned or used to resist the model, and show how the game is not only played against the model itself, but also with those who have created it and those who oppose it. Our findings illustrate that while “gaming the system” is an important part of gaming with algorithms, these games have other levels where humans play against each other, rather than against technology. We also draw attention to how deploying a hate-speech detection algorithm can be understood as an effort to not only detect but also preempt unwanted behavior.Peer reviewe

Animal-Computer Interaction: Auf den Weg zum technologisch vermittelten Multispeziesismus [Animal-Computer Interaction: towards Technologically Mediated Multispeciesity]

Seit Anbeginn der Menschheit hat Technologie als Vermittlerin in einer Vielzahl von anthropozentrischen Beziehungen mit anderen Tieren fungiert. Diese Beziehungen haben menschlichen Interessen systematisch zum Vorteil gereicht und waren das Fundament menschlicher Zivilisationen. Angefangen von den primitivsten Jagdgerätschaften bis zu den höchst entwickelten Landmaschinen und Überwachungseinrichtungen haben Technik und Technologie Menschen in die Lage versetzt, andere Tiere zunehmend zu beherrschen, und haben unsere Wahrnehmung dieser Tiere und unsere Interaktion mit ihnen tiefgreifend beeinflusst. Dies gilt besonders für die computergestützte interaktive Technologie, die innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte jeden Aspekt menschlicher Aktivität transformiert und sich rasch als fester Bestandteil des Alltags der Menschen etabliert hat. Computersysteme sind verwoben in das Geflecht unserer Städte, Arbeitsplätze, Häuser, Fahrzeuge und sogar unserer Körper. Sie machen es möglich, dass wir uns in bisher ungekannter Weise zu unserer Umwelt, zueinander und zu uns selbst in Beziehung setzen. Begleitend dazu hat die Einbindung von Tieren in menschliche Aktivitäten auch Tiere in wachsendem Maß dem Einfluss unserer Technik und Technologie ausgesetzt und von ihnen verlangt, mit dieser zu interagieren. Seit Anbeginn der Menschheit hat Technologie als Vermittlerin in einer Vielzahl von anthropozentrischen Beziehungen mit anderen Tieren fungiert. Diese Beziehungen haben menschlichen Interessen systematisch zum Vorteil gereicht und waren das Fundament menschlicher Zivilisationen. Angefangen von den primitivsten Jagdgerätschaften bis zu den höchst entwickelten Landmaschinen und Überwachungseinrichtungen haben Technik und Technologie Menschen in die Lage versetzt, andere Tiere zunehmend zu beherrschen, und haben unsere Wahrnehmung dieser Tiere und unsere Interaktion mit ihnen tiefgreifend beeinflusst. Dies gilt besonders für die computergestützte interaktive Technologie, die innerhalb weniger Jahrzehnte jeden Aspekt menschlicher Aktivität transformiert und sich rasch als fester Bestandteil des Alltags der Menschen etabliert hat. Computersysteme sind verwoben in das Geflecht unserer Städte, Arbeitsplätze, Häuser, Fahrzeuge und sogar unserer Körper. Sie machen es möglich, dass wir uns in bisher ungekannter Weise zu unserer Umwelt, zueinander und zu uns selbst in Beziehung setzen. Begleitend dazu hat die Einbindung von Tieren in menschliche Aktivitäten auch Tiere in wachsendem Maß dem Einfluss unserer Technik und Technologie ausgesetzt und von ihnen verlangt, mit dieser zu interagieren. This paper introduces the field of Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) and its fundamental aims: understanding the interaction between animals and technologies; designing animal-centred technology that improves animals’ welfare, supports their activities and fosters positive intra- and inter-species relations; and developing animal-centred methods that enable animals to participate in the design process. Through examples of work conducted in different areas within the field, the paper then articulates the reasons why such aims should be pursued, particularly at this historical time, demonstrating the importance of ACI as a discipline and as a worldview for animals, humans and the ecosystems we all share. Ultimately, the author argues, it might be in our species’ best interest to give animals their fair share of representation and control through animal-centred design processes and outcomes, and to invite them to co-design technologically mediated environments and futures with us, so that we could all benefit from the collective wisdom and strength of multispeciesity

Seven Years after the Manifesto: Literature Review and Research Directions for Technologies in Animal Computer Interaction

As technologies diversify and become embedded in everyday lives, the technologies we expose to animals, and the new technologies being developed for animals within the field of Animal Computer Interaction (ACI) are increasing. As we approach seven years since the ACI manifesto, which grounded the field within Human Computer Interaction and Computer Science, this thematic literature review looks at the technologies developed for (non-human) animals. Technologies that are analysed include tangible and physical, haptic and wearable, olfactory, screen technology and tracking systems. The conversation explores what exactly ACI is whilst questioning what it means to be animal by considering the impact and loop between machine and animal interactivity. The findings of this review are expected to form the first grounding foundation of ACI technologies informing future research in animal computing as well as suggesting future areas for exploratio

Trans-corporeal bodybuilding: an exploration of the trans-corporeal relations between South African competitive male bodybuilders and their more-than-human world(s)

The unique community of men’s organised competitive bodybuilding has long displayed a peculiar humanocentrism his/torically ingrained by a subcultural reliance on patriarchal, Cartesian, and Western tropes which discursively encode competitive male bodybuilders as the prototypical Hu/Man(ist) subject: disembodied and disembedded from the materiality of their bodies and their more-than-human world(s). This humanocentric bias has itself been reproduced in the taken-for-granted ways academic work on competitive male bodybuilders often reinscribes exclusionary and hierarchal relations between male bodybuilders’ subjectivities and their material bodies, as well as the more-than-human material agencies that are a necessity in the competitive building and gendered shaping of their muscle. In addressing this gap, this study adopted a feminist-inflected posthumanist approach to explore how the material agencies of South African competitive male bodybuilders’ muscle as well as their more-than-human world(s) co-participate in building their muscle, for the competitive stage. In doing so, the study drew on Stacy Alaimo’s trans-corporeality: a radically relational (re)figuration of Hu/Man(ist) subjectivity and embodiment which (re)imagines the corporeal substance of “the human” as be(com)ing co-constituted through/with/across the material relations and forces of the more-than-human world. In this regard, the methodological work of this study demanded an ontoepistemological shift towards a posthumanist and post-qualitative research-assemblage which set in motion a series of exploratory (re)search(ing) practices, as part of which 30 male bodybuilders from South Africa generated autophotographs about how they competitively build their muscle. From photo-encounter sessions a relational and multi-sensory mode of thinking↔sensing↔working with the participating bodybuilders and their autophotographic material (e)merged in ways which performatively co-produced a far more capacious analytic through/with/across which a multitude of human and more-than-human agencies could be seen to intra-actively co-participate in the material↔discursive↔affective building and gendering of competitive male bodybuilders’ muscle. Ultimately, the study develops a new trans-corporeal mode of theorising competitive male bodybuilders, their muscle, and their muscle-building↔gendering practices which endeavours to more fully understand the more-than↔human relations which are always already at work in building and gendering the men and muscle at the gravitational centre of this peculiar subculture. In the world of men’s competitive bodybuilding, the matter of muscle is never simply human

Multispecies Communities

Prof. Dr. Jens Schröter, Dr. Pablo Abend und Prof. Dr. Benjamin Beil sind Herausgeber der Reihe. Die Herausgeber*innen der einzelnen Hefte sind renommierte Wissenschaftler*innen aus dem In- und Ausland."Multispecies Communities" sind nicht mehr alleine auf den Menschen fixiert und bringen andere Akteure ins Spiel. Damit ergeben sich neue Formen der Kommunikationen und Kollaborationen, der Verantwortlichkeiten und der Rücksichtnahmen (awareness), der Vergemeinschaftungen und der Teilhaben: Diese finden statt zwischen Menschen und Tieren, Pflanzen und Algorithmen, Artefakten und Biofakten, Maschinen und Medien; zwischen den Sphären von belebt und unbelebt, real und virtuell, unberührt und augmentiert. Der Umgang mit Technik ist längst kein menschliches Privileg mehr, wie die Ausdifferenzierungen von Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) in Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) oder Plant-Computer Interaction (PCI) verdeutlichen. Diese Ausdifferenzierungen finden ihren Niederschlag ebenso in den verschiedenen Disziplinen der Wissenschaft und in der Kunst sowie in gesellschaftlichen, sozialen, ethischen und politischen Aushandlungen des gemeinsamen Miteinanders. In dieser Ausgabe sind für diesen Diskussionszusammenhang relevante programmatische Texte versammelt und erstmals für den deutschsprachigen Raum zugänglich gemacht."Multispecies communities" are no longer focused on humans alone and bring other actors into play. This results in new forms of communication and collaboration, of responsibilities and awareness, of communalisation and participation: These take place between humans and animals, plants and algorithms, artefacts and biofacts, machines and media; between the spheres of animate and inanimate, real and virtual, untouched and augmented. Dealing with technology is no longer a human privilege, as the differentiations from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) into Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI) or Plant-Computer Interaction (PCI) exemplify. These differentiations are also reflected in the various disciplines of science and art as well as in societal, social, ethical and political negotiations of shared interaction. In this issue, relevant programmatic texts have been collected for this discussion context and made available for the first time for the German-speaking area