Lee Cody
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[title] => Disparate Conversations
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[statement] => <p>Disparate Conversations is an inquiry into the void that exists between human speech and computational response. To investigate this, we created a fictional conversational interface. The user utilizes a gesture to indicate to the interface that she wants to talk. This gesture also communicates to people around her that she is not talking to them, as the interface exists as an implant, and all responses are only heard internally by the user.</p> <p>We first looked at what kind of interaction might happen if we remove the computer from its position as an all-knowing answer machine. What happens when we allow the conversational interface to fail? Does this affect our expectation of it? We found that if the interface communicates to the user that it may not be able to accomplish a task, it feels more natural if it fails the task. Often, for an interface to feel more natural, contextual awareness is very important.</p> <p>We considered how contextual awareness can affect a conversation, taking into account how the system can be aware of its context. While this awareness usually helped the flow of conversations, when it came to non-quantifiable data, contextualizing hinders a conversation more than it helps. Throughout our investigation, it became important to define what a conversation even is.</p> <p>We felt it was important to distinguish between a conversation and a command when interacting with a conversational interface. In our terms, in a conversation, the user does not have an explicit goal or task to accomplish, whereas with a command, the user expects the computer to execute some function and return a result. Conversations and commands can and should co-exist, as they each accomplish different things. Conversations are an important part of building a relationship between the machine and the user, and we felt it was important to investigate different methods of communication within a conversation.</p> <p>Conversations exist as social functions, and are entirely absent in current computer communication. Can conversational interfaces perform these functions? Do we need them to? Our machines gather information about us in a similar manner to how we get to know each other, shouldn't we also "get to know" our computers? Can this human-machine relationship exist as human-human relationships do?We wanted to explore the effect on inter-human relationships more closely.</p> <p>A side effect of making the interface feel more natural is of course, personifying it more. As these interfaces are made more human, how do they fit into current social settings? What kind of culture would develop around them? Do we introduce our interfaces to our friends? With our fictional interface, we felt it was necessary to communicate to other people that you were engaged in conversation with your computer, as our interface exists as an implant and cannot be heard by anyone but the user. But as our interfaces are humanized more, perhaps they should be more public, more social. These are all questions we would explore further, as we don't currently have an answer for any of them.Through our investigation into that void that exists between human input and computer output, we advocate for a more independent interface.</p> <p>A computer should not just imitate human responses, it should form its own reactions, personality. If we see the computer as an individual, we don't expect it to be human, and it doesn't let us down when it turns out that it isn't human.</p>
<p>Disparate Conversations is a collaboration with <a href="http://cargocollective.com/xinglv" target="_blank">Xing Lu</a></p>
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