Work of Fiction
In this project, we examine human relationships with AI through Design Fiction using a future scenario where AI decision-making is used for recruitment and humans give interviews to machines. Through this, we critically examine Human-AI interaction, AI explainability, AI pervasiveness, and AI ethics. It also makes us think about technological determinism and relativism, and how AI will fit into the future of decision-making.
Future Studies Methods
Futures Triangle
Emerging Issue Analysis
Purpose
Origin in weak signals from some companies deploying interview AI analysis.
Reflection on Human-AI interaction, AI explainability, AI pervasiveness, and AI ethics
Design Fiction Technique
Diegetic prototype, persona, storyboards, flyer, props, hair, makeup and costume
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The criticality comes from how we change people’s perspectives with our depiction of the domain. We change the structure of interviews, reflecting thought and instigating critique about our current practices. Interviews are supposed to be deeply personal and give a fair representation of a person’s ability in our current age. However, we change this norm by browsing the entire online data available about a person, their genetic characteristics, their micro-expressions, medical history, EEG, and ECG readings using AI. This is a representation of the pervasiveness of technology. The AI also judges the capability of the person interviewed, decides their fate and their line of work, shifting the control and authority from humans to AI. It almost makes humans the slaves of machines as predicted by Marx with the increasing reliance on technology. This makes us question the functionality of AI and propose ethical and legal changes within our current systems.
Domain
AI decision-making for interviews: The narrative is set in 2030, where AI handles the recruitment and onboarding of individuals in corporate workspaces. We investigate this narrative with the help of two young women applying for a position at Technopolis, a gigantic yet mysterious corporation, and their interaction with the company’s AI recruiter. Owing to this shift in paradigm, we explore this future by speculating artifacts, changing social norms, and other elements of world-building.
Purpose
The origin of this imagined future is based on weak signals emerging in current job hiring and marketplace practices. Certain Fortune 500 companies have already started deploying AI for hiring and interview analysis. AI has the capability of going through a multitude of data parallelly, which far exceeds human capacity. We extend the same technique, making the process of selection more robust and efficient. Of course, this future has several connotations which encourage criticality. Through this, we provide viewers with an opportunity to reflect on human-AI interaction, AI explainability, AI pervasiveness, and AI ethics. It also makes us think about technological determinism and relativism, and how AI will fit into the future of decision-making. This future lies on the probable scale of the future’s cone.
Future Studies technique
Futures Triangle: We identify trends leading to the present, i.e. our historical adoption of technology in workplaces, our view on data privacy, and how we prioritize certain values like efficiency. We see how AI is currently deployed in hiring processes and hence, map out the future.
Emerging Issue Analysis: We gauge the emerging weak signals of AI being used in interviewing, the rapid incorporation of technology in every facet of the workplace, and using these trends, we anticipate the future.
Design Fiction technique
We used film as a diegetic prototype where we showed AI decision-making. We also made a storyboard for planning each scene. To build the world, we also deployed various other props. These included a station for scanning DNA, cotton swabs, elaborate hair and makeup, dog tag pendants, costumes, a Non-Disclosure Agreement, and wires for scanning EEG and ECG readings, among others. We also built our interaction keeping in mind the corporate setting in the future.
Critical dimensions
The criticality comes from how we change people’s perspectives with our depiction of the domain. We change the structure of interviews, reflecting thought and instigating critique about our current practices. Interviews are supposed to be deeply personal and give a fair representation of a person’s ability in our current age. However, we change this norm by browsing the entire online data available about a person, their genetic characteristics, their microexpressions, medical history, EEG, and ECG readings using AI. This is a representation of the pervasiveness of technology. The AI also judges the capability of the person interviewed, decides their fate and their line of work, shifting the control and authority from humans to AI. It almost makes humans the slaves of machines as predicted by Marx with the increasing reliance on technology. This makes us question the functionality of AI and propose ethical and legal changes within our current systems.
Reflections and Conclusion
The experience was engrossing and insightful. We started by brainstorming about how AI makes decisions and interacts with us in the contemporary world to find weak signals that could make a difference. After deciding on the domain, we built a scenario and a world around our narrative to make the future more speculative and critical. We had to think about how AI would interact in corporate spaces and make decisions. We ensured the interactions initiated reflection about technology’s role in modern society.
The most enjoyable part was the creative freedom. A surprise was how long the hair, makeup, and costume process took. We had to define these concepts and establish consistency, which was tedious. We learned about the connotations and significance of different shots and angles. We played with focus, exposure, and lighting to depict emotions and settings. This helped us learn a lot more about diegetic prototyping and develop a better understanding of the FS techniques.