Abstract
With the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics, intelligent artifacts are increasingly integrated into human life. Traditional user-centered design approaches focus on optimizing interaction experiences but often overlook potential ethical issues. This study employsaparticipatoryspeculativedesignapproach, engagingthepublicinco-constructing future scenarios to foreground ethical reflection at the early stages of the design process. Building on this approach, we propose an extended model of the Experiential Future Ladder and implement it through a workshop involving eight Chinese youth participants. Thematic analysis identifies three categories of ethical issues in future human–intelligent artifact interactions: dilemmas between emotion and control, socio-cultural projections, and the redefinition of human–machine relationships. Findings indicate that this experience-based participatory speculative design method helps reveal how the public perceives, negotiates, and articulates ethical stances in specific contexts, highlighting the potential of speculative design to activate societal ethical imagination.
Keywords
Intelligent Artifacts; Participatory Speculative Design; Experiential Futures; Design Fiction
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.154
Citation
Zhang, B., Xiao, J.,and Zhang, L.(2025) Co-Living with Intelligent Artifacts: An Experiential Participatory Speculative Design Method, in Chang, C.-Y., and Hsu, Y. (eds.), IASDR 2025: Design Next, 02-05 December, Taiwan. https://doi.org/10.21606/iasdr.2025.154
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Conference Track
Track 2 - Design Futuring
Co-Living with Intelligent Artifacts: An Experiential Participatory Speculative Design Method
With the advancement of artificial intelligence and robotics, intelligent artifacts are increasingly integrated into human life. Traditional user-centered design approaches focus on optimizing interaction experiences but often overlook potential ethical issues. This study employsaparticipatoryspeculativedesignapproach, engagingthepublicinco-constructing future scenarios to foreground ethical reflection at the early stages of the design process. Building on this approach, we propose an extended model of the Experiential Future Ladder and implement it through a workshop involving eight Chinese youth participants. Thematic analysis identifies three categories of ethical issues in future human–intelligent artifact interactions: dilemmas between emotion and control, socio-cultural projections, and the redefinition of human–machine relationships. Findings indicate that this experience-based participatory speculative design method helps reveal how the public perceives, negotiates, and articulates ethical stances in specific contexts, highlighting the potential of speculative design to activate societal ethical imagination.