Table of Contents

VOLUME XXVIII.1 January - February 2021

  • WELCOME
    • AI activism

      Alex Taylor, Daniela Rosner, Mikael Wiberg

      It's debatable whether AI is in its ascendancy or decline. Over the past decade, artificial intelligence has captivated technoscientific audiences across the globe, especially in the Global North. Coverage has targeted everything from pedestrian versions of AI—the plumbing of technological infrastructures—to full-blown visions of the singularity, the apocalyptic consequence…

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  • What are you reading?
    • What are you reading? Rosanna Bellini

      Rosanna Bellini

      What are you reading? Rosanna Bellini

      If you read a book related to your work, even a fictional one, does that time count as time spent working and not relaxing? This question comes bubbling to the surface of my mind every time I consider reading material that addresses a topic even tangentially connected to my…

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  • Blog@IX
    • Fighting coronavirus with faith: Religious and parareligious responses to Covid-19 in Bangladesh

      Sharifa Sultana, A. Islam, Syed Ahmed

      Fighting coronavirus with faith: Religious and parareligious responses to Covid-19 in Bangladesh

      Many communities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America—often left out of human-computer interaction (HCI) discussions—defy the boundary of scientific rationality and seek healthcare and well-being from various traditional faith-based practices. For example, South African indigenous traditional healers serve 60 percent of their population. And thousands of Peruvians use the…

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  • Exhibit X
    • The hologram: Collective health as really beautiful artwork

      Cassie Thornton, Lita Wallis, Furtherfield

      The hologram: Collective health as really beautiful artwork

      How do we organize collective care during an emergency, within a completely unstable set of conditions? Is it possible to build a peer-to-peer model that distributes care in ways that don't reproduce the racism, patriarchy, ableism, and other forms of violence present in our societies? In early 2020, U.S.-born…

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  • Columns
    • Your sexuality does not matter!

      Gopinaath Kannabiran

      Your sexuality does not matter!

      Beginning with this column, as part of a three-part series, I will explore the entanglements between queer desire and the design of computer-related technologies. I will use the word queer in an intentionally ambiguous, playfully suggestive, and endlessly contestable manner. When referring to people's identities, I use queer as…

    • On empathy and empiricism: Addressing stereotypes about older adults in technology

      Daria Loi, Thomas Lodato

      On empathy and empiricism: Addressing stereotypes about older adults in technology

      Stereotypes are problematic in how they essentialize individuals, yet they are hard to avoid. Arising from ordinary cognitive processes of how individuals perceive themselves relative to others, stereotypes emphasize dimensions of meaningful differences between groups [1] that are defined by one's specific social and cultural environment rather than unfiltered…

    • Reflecting on AI activism

      Elizabeth Churchill

      Reflecting on AI activism

      When I heard that this issue of Interactions was focused on AI activism, it occurred to me that we have an opportunity for a multiperspectival approach to thinking about activism in this arena. Three areas that came to mind: A conceptual reframing of AI. Let's reclaim, unpack, and redefine…

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  • Making/breaking
    • almanac.computer

      David Benqué

      almanac.computer

      Almanac publications are practical guides for navigating the future, comprising calendars, maps, forecasts, tables, unit conversions, folklore, and other useful information. Almanacs have been in print circulation since at least the 17th century, with almanac-like artifacts such as maps, tablets, and ledgers dating back millennia in many cultures around…

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  • Forums
    • A lovely day: An optimistic vision for an automated future

      Ovetta Sampson

      A lovely day: An optimistic vision for an automated future

      Ms. Wong (not her real name) couldn't contain her joy. This young, petite woman bounced on her couch as she described what most think of as the most mundane of activities—driving. My team and I were in Beijing on a research trip to design the future of autonomous vehicles.…

    • Women’s webs, music, and artivisms: Empowerment processes at Girls Rock Camp Porto Alegre 2019

      Isabel Nogueira

      Women’s webs, music, and artivisms: Empowerment processes at Girls Rock Camp Porto Alegre 2019

      In the field of gender studies, we often observe processes of silencing and erasure. One area where this can be found is women's sound production: It has always existed but has often been rendered invisible. Observing how strategies are constructed to change this situation led me to seek the…

    • The Humboldt Cup: On narrative, taxonomies, and colonial violence

      Luiza de Oliveira Martins

      The Humboldt Cup: On narrative, taxonomies, and colonial violence

      This new forum focuses on the topic of coloniality, in all its forms. The concept of the coloniality of power was first proposed by sociologist Aníbal Quijano to describe a set of practices whose origins he traces to the project of European colonialism. This article introduces the importance of…

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  • Community square
    • Globally yours

      Neha Kumar, Eunice Sari, Adriana Vivacqua, Naveena Karusala, Vikram Kamath, Luigi De Russis, Loren Terveen

      Globally yours

      The SIGCHI community is unlikely to have experienced as powerful, if catastrophic, a unifier as Covid-19. Even as we struggle to respond to the pandemic in our roles as researchers, educators, practitioners, and designers—with stops and breaks along the way—we have continued to forge meaningful ties and found ways…

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  • Space
    • Human perceptron

      RYBN.ORG

      Human perceptron

      In 2016, we were invited by PACT Zollverein in Essen, Germany, to conduct a workshop on the UNESCO world heritage site of Zollverein, during the IMPACT 16 symposium. The workshop included a presentation of our artistic works, as well as our topics of research—algorithms, high-frequency trading, market microstructures, cybernetics,…

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  • Features
    • HCI sustaining the rule of law and democracy: A European perspective

      Mireille Hildebrandt, Virginia Dignum

      HCI sustaining the rule of law and democracy: A European perspective

      In a time in which many believe AI poses serious threats to democratic politics, democratic institutions, and our capacity and right to engage freely in democratic practices, AI activism is rising. This activism is not only geared to the AI community itself and the giant tech organizations that are…

    • Power and technology: Who gets to make the decisions?

      Jennifer Lee, Meg Young, P. Krafft, Michael Katell

      Power and technology: Who gets to make the decisions?

      POSITION: Power and Technology: Who Gets to Make the Decisions? What would it mean to shift the balance of power, such that historically marginalized communities wielded ultimate authority in deciding if, and not just how, technologies are built? In such a world, what kinds of technologies would be allowed…

    • From automation to autonomy and autonomous vehicles: Challenges and opportunities for HCI

      Wei Xu

      From automation to autonomy and autonomous vehicles: Challenges and opportunities for HCI

      Autonomous systems based in artificial intelligence (AI) are increasingly entering people's daily work and life. A major category is autonomous vehicles (AV). The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration hopes that future AVs can drastically reduce fatalities by eliminating driver errors that account for 94 percent of fatal road…

    • Otherware: How to best interact with autonomous systems

      Marc Hassenzahl, Jan Borchers, Susanne Boll, Astrid Pütten, Volker Wulf

      Otherware: How to best interact with autonomous systems

      From the command line to today's immersive, tangible, or gesture-based interaction, the evolution of interaction paradigms is a story of increasing embodiment [1]. We predominantly design interactive systems as tools, which withdraw from conscious thought to be always ready-at-hand. In this paradigm, people are at the center of action…

    • Potential bias in creative chart design: A review of nontraditional financial graphs

      Wei-Cheng Shen, Chih-Chen Lee, Te-Wei Wang

      Potential bias in creative chart design: A review of nontraditional financial graphs

      The cliché "a picture is worth a thousand words" highlights how graphical representation facilitates clear, concise, and impactful communication. As human eyes are more sensitive to colors and shapes than to words, data is processed and encoded in a manner that our eyes can discern and our brains can…

    • Technology ecosystems: Rethinking resources for mental health

      Eleanor Burgess, Renwen Zhang, Sindhu Ernala, Jessica Feuston, Munmun De Choudhury, Mary Czerwinski, Adrian Aguilera, Stephen Schueller, Madhu Reddy

      Technology ecosystems: Rethinking resources for mental health

      Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 450 million individuals suffer from mental and neurological disorders. In the U.S. alone, in a given year, 44 million adults experience mental illness, including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and schizophrenia. Individuals living with mental illness navigate disclosures of their experience and…

    • UX designers pushing AI in the enterprise: A case for adaptive UIs

      John Zimmerman, Changhoon Oh, Nur Yildirim, Alex Kass, Teresa Tung, Jodi Forlizzi

      UX designers pushing AI in the enterprise: A case for adaptive UIs

      AI and UX design have grown up as quite different disciplines. But we're now starting to see that small bits of AI can enrich a UI in interesting, useful ways. Adaptive user interfaces (AUIs) employ elements of AI to improve user experience. AUIs recognize and automate frequent tasks, such…

    • Deep learning for human-computer interaction

      Huy Le, Sven Mayer, Niels Henze

      Deep learning for human-computer interaction

      Early and continuous user involvement has a truly long tradition in human-computer interaction (HCI). Iterative human-centered processes are widely used in academia and industry to ensure users' needs are considered throughout the design and development processes. The user-centered design (UCD) process [1] depicted in Figure 1 is a highly…

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  • Dialogues
    • A conversation on AI activism

      Sarayu Natarajan, Smriti Parsheera

      A conversation on AI activism

      Note to readers: We have attempted in this conversation to bring up some conceptual and practical concerns for AI activism. We are both scholars from India, and so is the imagination of this piece. Sarayu Natarajan: I got interested in AI because the production and making of AI is…

    • HCI sustaining the rule of law and democracy: A European perspective

      Mireille Hildebrandt, Virginia Dignum

      HCI sustaining the rule of law and democracy: A European perspective

      In a time in which many believe AI poses serious threats to democratic politics, democratic institutions, and our capacity and right to engage freely in democratic practices, AI activism is rising. This activism is not only geared to the AI community itself and the giant tech organizations that are…

    • Power and technology: Who gets to make the decisions?

      Jennifer Lee, Meg Young, P. Krafft, Michael Katell

      Power and technology: Who gets to make the decisions?

      POSITION: Power and Technology: Who Gets to Make the Decisions? What would it mean to shift the balance of power, such that historically marginalized communities wielded ultimate authority in deciding if, and not just how, technologies are built? In such a world, what kinds of technologies would be allowed…

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  • Exit
    • Women reclaiming AI

      Birgitte Aga, Coral Manton

      Women reclaiming AI

      Contributors: Birgitte Aga, Coral Ann Manton Curator/Editor: Amanda Windle https://womenreclaimingai.com/ AI-generated images of women promote new forms of beauty that are made from averaging out human features. The images tell you nothing about the people making them, the datasets being used, or what their purpose is. Historically, women have…

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