It’s been a busy week as we approach the end of the year. As I mentioned (many times) before, these weeks are particularly hectic because of the upcoming ThingsCon event happening in a little bit more than a week. I’m looking forward to this edition because we have a great program with many interesting sessions, inspiring keynotes, and stellar installations on exhibit.
Including the special exhibition showcasing prototypes of future generative things that could become enhanced or enchanted with generative capabilities. We’re excited to see the nicest designs and hope to have a good collection of prototypes to instigate interesting discussions and answer questions. I won’t bother you with other aspects like balancing a budget around break-even ;-)
Aside from the event, more projects need to be finished by the end of the year: An exploratory research project at the Civic IxD group. And finalizing an extra iteration on the knowledge product for designing hoodbots as a means to give voice to citizens about technology in their neighborhood and beyond.
Triggered thought
This week’s “triggered thought” comes from a personal experience. It’s about a conversation I had regarding my parking situation. In Amsterdam, we have this sophisticated parking space built almost 20 years ago. It’s a system where you drive your car onto a pallet, get out, and then use your badge to have the system move your car underground.
Last weekend, a situation occurred when I called for my car using the service to call in advance, but someone else arrived at the garage and used their responder to collect their car without the software service. This made me think about how AI could influence such systems in mundane situations.
For example, a more intelligent system could recognize when someone has called in person, and prioritize their car as it is closer by the exit, even if someone else had placed the call first.
It’s similar to modern elevator systems in skyscrapers, where you choose your destination floor before entering the elevator. This allows the system to optimize everyone’s journey based on the floor it travels to. This disconnects your actions from the behavior of the automated system.
This can be even more intelligent. Not only using the current situation of the different elevators, but also mixing in patterns from the past and predictive knowledge from similar elevator systems. Than we have predictive relations that are creating strategies for operating based not only on the context but also on expected behavior.
The behavior of the thing (elevator, parking automat) is disconnected from the users control. This raises interesting questions about user experience and trust in AI systems,. How do we design these systems to balance efficiency, user understanding, and intentions? We will need conversational AI interfaces that can explain decisions and offer the possibility to drive. And create tangible moments of interaction.
Read the full newsletter here, with
- Notions from last week’s news on Human-AI partnerships, Robotic performances, Immersive connectedness, and Tech societies
- Paper for the week
- Looking forward with events to visit
Thanks for reading. I started blogging ideas and observations back in 2005 via Targetisnew.com. Since 2015, I have started a weekly update with links to the news and reflections. I always capture news on tech and societal impact from my perspective and interest. In the last few years, it has focused on the relationship between humans and tech, particularly AI, IoT, and robotics.
The notions from the news are distributed via the weekly newsletter, archived online here. Every week, I reflect more on one topic, a triggered thought. I share that thought here and redirect it to my newsletter for an overview of news, events, and more. If you need to find something from the past, use my GPT Weeknotes Archive.
If you are a new reader and wondering who is writing, I am Iskander Smit. I am educated as an industrial designer and have worked in digital technology all my life. I am particularly interested in digital-physical interactions and a focus on human-tech intelligence co-performance. I like to (critically) explore the near future in the context of cities of things. And organising ThingsCon. I call Target_is_New my practice for making sense of unpredictable futures in human-AI partnerships. That is the lens I use to capture interesting news and share a paper every week.
Feel invited to reach out if you need some reflections; I might be able to help out!
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