We are particularly interested in discussing the following themes but are also open for other takes on our main questions:
Imperceptible interactions: Interactions that we cannot directly perceive (see, touch, feel) or understand (the mechanisms behind the technology is hidden) such as; smart environments and homes, ML algorithms and predictive technologies, robot “decisions”. How do people (users and designers) relate to and understand autonomous technology when they cannot sense or make sense of its operations (see e.g., Soma and Herstad 2018)? How can we design for human autonomy when the human does not know s/he interacts or what the autonomous technology does? How do we describe and critically consider being an involuntary user of autonomous (and ubiquitous) technology? How can humans relate to autonomous and/or imperceptible ‘things’ – or how do we describe the human-thing and subject-object relations?
Interaction with autonomous things: Interaction with robots, (chat)bots, or smart vehicles. We have seen that with the introduction of a robot in a domestic setting, humans need to carry out facilitation (Soma et al. 2018; Oskarsen 2018) or articulation work (Saplacan and Herstad 2019; Verne 2020). How do we describe how we relate to technology that perform tasks for us and with us? How do people handle having autonomous or automatic things as “colleagues” or “partners” in work where work tasks are distributed or shared by humans and technology? How do people whose workflow includes AI/ML-based decisions relate to the automatic decision-making process? What is a good mix or fit between machine and human decision-making?
Perspectives on “imperceptible interactions with autonomous things.”: We welcome philosophical and theoretical perspectives on human autonomy in today’s society and how technology can strengthen human autonomy. How do we describe and critically evaluate the different ways that technology represent, protect and support or weaken human autonomy? Within this theme we include questions about how we can design these interactions, i.e., how to design for capabilities (Joshi 2017), prolonged mastery (Joshi and Bratteteig 2016), or situated abilities (Saplacan 2020), how to design for perception and meaning-making when imperceptible interaction is the basis, how to design for interaction with moving things like robots (Saplacan and Herstad 2019) or autonomous vehicles? We also think that a debate about the (human) values and foci of the 4th shift in interaction design / HCI is timely, as are possible mechanisms and design concepts for increasing human autonomy (Bratteteig and Verne 2012).
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