Umeå Institute of Design

Umeå Institute of Design is set to have a new leadership team in place on July 1st. Demian Horst will become the 'Head of Institute', while Linda Bresäter and Oscar Björk take the positions of 'Deputy Head of Institute' and 'Assistant Head of Institute'.

What if the Alexas and Siris of the future begin interrupting human-to-human relationships? For her #UID21 grad project, Lea Bachmann sketched up speculative design scenarios in order to explore the future of conversational agents in our homes. Conversational agents in domestic spaces are constantly increasing and with this ethical issues that we have not anticipated will arise. I’ve taken a closer look at the qualities and values these relationships are based on and poin...ted out some of the possible unintended consequences that could occur if these agents begin to carry human-like features and if they start to interject themselves into human-to-human relationships, says Lea Bachmann. Lea’s final design concept is a fictional design bureau set in the future, A-I-CTIVISTS. The company consists of a group of designers and AI & Ethic specialists that hold the companies that create conversational agents accountable. In order to draw attention to the issue, A-I-CTIVISTS create provocative design scenarios around the ethics in human-conversational agent relationships. Scenarios such as BLOODSISTERS, ROLEMODELS, HELPISHERE, BABYAGENT & AGENTNANNYS can be explored on the A-I-CTIVISTS website: https://www.a-i-ctivists.com/ Check out all grad projects in the 'UID21 Project Gallery': uid.umu.se/en/uid21/project-gallery #UID21 #gradshow #design #designeducation #designprocess #industrialdesign #uid #lifeatuid #productdesign #interactiondesign #IxD #digitalfuture #smarthomes #conversationalagents #speculativedesign See more