Workshop ThingsCon 2019 ‘Relate to the Machine’

At the last ThingsCon Iskander curated a workshop themed on our future relation with the machines. Next to his introduction Maria Luce Lupetti (TU Delft) and Gijs Huisman (Digital Society School) presented, and Maaike Harbers (Creating010/Hogeschool Rotterdam) led a workshop to discuss the ethics.

The background of the workshop:

Our relation with machines is changing. The relation between humans and nonhumans is becoming more duplex and AI is influencing the behaviour of the devices. We wear devices more close on our body and we are interacting with things that become more self-aware and get agency or even citizenship. We need to rethink this interplay and how we design for these. Session

In this session we focus on the new intimate interactions we have with these objects with agency and the consequences for design. We are discussing the need for having a relationship with these tech and what that entails in the first place. How do we design technology that we can have a responsible relationship with? How do we design technology that enables us to have responsible relationships with each other? We invited researchers and designers with different backgrounds that share their thoughts and findings and present them in statements for the discussion.

In the second part we like to discuss the ethical questions of these new interactions through the workshop ‘Make Me Think!’.