Interactive Artifacts

Shared Understanding & Mutual Intelligibility Defines the field of social studies – Interpreting the actions of others – Goal is to come up with accounts of the significance of human action – Study how members of society accomplish mutual intelligibility of action Relationship between observable behavior and processes that make it meaningful – Behavior/action can be part of indefinite number of meanings/goals – Goals can be achieved through indefinite number of behaviors

Practical vs. Theoretical Goals of AI Different meanings ascribed to Strong AI – Reasons in the same way as humans – Produce machines with an intelligence that matches or exceeds that of humans Weak AI – Develop systems whose behavior appears intelligent regardless of how it is achieved Perhaps deep understanding is required for either

Interactive Artifacts Computer as evocative object (Turkle) Children’s view of computers as blending of – Physical: things we build, design, use – Social: things we communicate with Interaction/communication implies mutual intelligibility – Need to answer how this works for humans before considering machines

Cognitive Science and Automata Mind viewed as neither substantial nor insubstantial but as an abstraction – Reflection -> behaviorism -> cognitive science Combines discussion of – “beliefs, desires, symbols, schemata, planning, problem solving” with scientific method – Cognitive models proved sufficient on computers – Intelligence as the manipulation of symbols

Human-Computer Interaction History: – batch processing -> interactive computing -> shared languages Uses terms from human interaction Hayes/Reddy say difference is robustness – Ability to respond to unanticipated circumstances – Ability to detect and remedy troubles in communication Said no graceful systems exist but components are there – Abilities cited are necessary but not sufficient – Work done was in limited domains Is intentional vocabulary a shortcut?

Should Interaction be Human-like? Benefits – More natural – More accessible to those that are new to or shy away from technology Costs – Might conceal miscommunication – May not allow taking advantage of strengths of partners – People have a tendency to assume more capability than shown to exist Opaqueness of computer also results in reificiation

Self-Explanatory Artifacts Machines should be able to explain goals and relations of actions to goals Self-explanatory as: – Obvious/discoverable, e.g. a hammer – Able to explain itself, e.g. training applications Need to know when not to say things – WEST Watched student and only interrupted when viewed appropriate

Understanding Computers Computer as artifact designed for a purpose Increasing use of computers means increasingly complex technology should be usable with decreasing training Purposes are not always obvious (e.g. archeology) –

Instruction as a Goal Face-to-face training relies on specifics and context (different each time) – Tailored to current needs Written instruction relies on generalization – Reusable for large number of people and situations Interactive systems can be both reusable and individualized – Example of WEST

Computers as Purposeful Not just purposes of users or designers but having their own goals Designer builds system to be accountably rational History of Turing Test – Does not care about similarity of process – ELIZA as limited success (Weizenbaum denied intelligence) – DOCTOR (Rogerian therapist) – people assumed reasons even if none existed Eliza conceals lack of understanding where “graceful interaction” requires it to be made explicit