Grasping AI: experiential exercises for designers

TL;DR

This paper presents experiential exercises for designers to better understand AI interaction, focusing on social implications, responsibility, and reflection through hands-on activities in an educational setting.

Contribution

It introduces nine AI-focused exercises for design students that enhance understanding of AI's social and relational aspects, fostering responsible design thinking.

Findings

Exercises improve students' understanding of AI's social implications

Metaphor and enactment exercises make complex AI issues tangible

Students become more reflective and responsible in AI design processes

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are increasingly integrated into the functioning of physical and digital products, creating unprecedented opportunities for interaction and functionality. However, there is a challenge for designers to ideate within this creative landscape, balancing the possibilities of technology with human interactional concerns. We investigate techniques for exploring and reflecting on the interactional affordances, the unique relational possibilities, and the wider social implications of AI systems. We introduced into an interaction design course (n=100) nine 'AI exercises' that draw on more than human design, responsible AI, and speculative enactment to create experiential engagements around AI interaction design. We find that exercises around metaphors and enactments make questions of training and learning, privacy and consent, autonomy and agency more tangible, and thereby help students be more reflective and responsible on how to design with AI and its complex properties in both their design process and outcomes.