Abstract
Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs), like Amazon Alexa, are voice-enabled virtual agents handling mundane domestic tasks. They interact with humans in specific ways structured around their embedded intelligence to achieve automated functionality. However, this intelligence is a human-centered and technology-driven construct limited to that which is algorithmically computable for the sake of operationality, hence deficient for encapsulating the complexity of human and non-human ecologies. This deprives agents of any creative potential in the home, a space of multiplicity wherein life can be lived in unique ways beyond mere functionality. Turning to the opposite of intelligence to explore alternative interactions, I utilize idiocy as that which lies outside norms. Drawing on post-structuralism and post-humanism, while merging speculative design with participatory methods, I adopt an idiotic approach that moves away from classifications of agency and pre-scripted interactions. I describe three idiotic agents – interactive artifacts acting in absurd, unpredictable ways – and their implementation in homes through participatory material speculation. I found that idiotic agents can enable more social (but not human-like) interactions with humans, while altering and enriching the overall ambience of the home. Interactions emerged contextually and situatedly through relational human-agent entanglements rather than pre-scritped interactions.
Keywords
Human-Agent Interactions; design framework; participatory material speculation; home
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.150
Citation
Tsilogianni, M.(2023) Idiotic Agents: Exploring more open-ended and creative interactions between humans and Intelligent Personal Assistants in the home, in Silvia Ferraris, Valentina Rognoli, Nithikul Nimkulrat (eds.), EKSIG 2023: From Abstractness to Concreteness – experiential knowledge and the role of prototypes in design research, 19–20 June 2023, Milan, Italy. https://doi.org/10.21606/eksig2023.150
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Idiotic Agents: Exploring more open-ended and creative interactions between humans and Intelligent Personal Assistants in the home
Intelligent Personal Assistants (IPAs), like Amazon Alexa, are voice-enabled virtual agents handling mundane domestic tasks. They interact with humans in specific ways structured around their embedded intelligence to achieve automated functionality. However, this intelligence is a human-centered and technology-driven construct limited to that which is algorithmically computable for the sake of operationality, hence deficient for encapsulating the complexity of human and non-human ecologies. This deprives agents of any creative potential in the home, a space of multiplicity wherein life can be lived in unique ways beyond mere functionality. Turning to the opposite of intelligence to explore alternative interactions, I utilize idiocy as that which lies outside norms. Drawing on post-structuralism and post-humanism, while merging speculative design with participatory methods, I adopt an idiotic approach that moves away from classifications of agency and pre-scripted interactions. I describe three idiotic agents – interactive artifacts acting in absurd, unpredictable ways – and their implementation in homes through participatory material speculation. I found that idiotic agents can enable more social (but not human-like) interactions with humans, while altering and enriching the overall ambience of the home. Interactions emerged contextually and situatedly through relational human-agent entanglements rather than pre-scritped interactions.