Things that predict— 🖐🎤💥 MicDrop #12 by Iskander Smit
This is a transcript of the speech given by Iskander Smit, visiting professor and Ph.D. Candidate at Delft University of Technology, Innovation director at INFO and chairman of the Dutch chapter of ThingsCon. at the Digital Society School, during MicDrop#12 ‘Things that predict’ on May 7th, 2019, Digital Society School in Amsterdam.
Things that predict is an idea when things start to talk to each other. What happens when things actually start reasoning and start drawing conclusions that could not be in our best interest. What would this mean for our relationship between each other in the Cities of Things, a metropolis with future scenarios such as automatic cleaning robots and automated driving? What will our street looks like when everything is automated?
In this first step, things with agency and things that use the input of sensors can start to do their own things. In the second step, they might have a conversation with us. What is the role of these things when they become citizens? How will things behave when they are on the intersection of IoT, Intelligent City and Agency. I look at the smart city from a different context.
The Cities of Things is not an idea of these things being controlled anymore, but things being autonomous in our society. The state of Arizona (U.S.A.) passed a law that gives delivery robots the same rights as pedestrians. This concept seems far away in the United States, but Rotterdam Centraal Station has autonomous robots cleaning their hallways. To discuss these things coming into our society, my coworkers and I made a workshop toolkit to look in the roles of delegation.
Things as social entities — What is the role of predictive relations in the design practice of the future connected product-service designer?
Things are becoming more complex things. They are not just objects anymore. And we need to look at the ecosystem of things to make it more intelligent. Things become a platform for data and services. How can you design a thing that works together with the person? Will the future of the product be a fixed thing or will it change all the time? I listed four new types of things:
- Hardware as a platform
- Conversations with the machines
- Beyond screen interactions
- Context-aware, rule-based
So I look at data-enabled artefacts with self-performing capabilities. When using a product or service, there will be a feedback look validating anticipated behaviour. The thing will start to build a database on how to anticipate, this is often called a ‘digital twin’. If a Nest thermostat knows your behaviour and starts to predict your preferences and act on these predictions, then it will not be the product you want.
The system has started to rule your world.
What will it mean for us humans when we have things that predict? How do we relate to them when we think these things are smarter than us? When things start to predict outcomes, it means that it will feed forward on situations we did not anticipate. The more complex things become, the more we need predictive relations. We will start to depend on these complex things to understand the world. And you can already see how autonomous systems are starting to use simulations to make sense of what they do. Things become more and more part of complex digital distributed systems, predictions that will reduce the agency we will have over our own behaviour.
Predicting is a design activity. As a designer is creating a certain future and materialising life in this future, it is also taking away another possible future. It is important to create trust both in the quality of the prediction as in the use of the predictions in relation to personal data. Designers need to create trust in the system; the people (users) need proof. Predictions change how we behave, but also how we design.
The interaction of predictions and actions creates a complex interrelated design space.
How are we going to design for the unknown knowns?
The DSS Mic Drops are inspirational, interactive, provocative master classes given by expert researchers and practitioners, on topics that relate to design, tech, societal challenges and how we can make the world a better place by integrating technology more wisely and humanely.
