HCI

Dear Felienne! Oh, the irony! Last week, I complained about researchers using AI to do their work and called them imposters, and this week, I made the mistake of using AI to finish my own homework! After completing my notes, I asked Gemini for feedback, and ultimately ended up using an idea it gave me. I felt weird about it ever since. Both like a hypocrite and, indeed, like an imposter. I have considered re-recording the homework for the podcast and removing the AI’s suggestion from this text, thus pretending it has never happened. But maybe there is some value in publicly admitting this. ...

Dear Felienne! I had promised you a shorter homework for this week, and I think I did it: it’s a tiny little bit shorter (based on my own estimate). But also, it isn’t really exactly the homework you suggested. I did something else instead. I guess I went off course… but in some way, I hope that’s the point. So what did I do? What the Stair Climber, Slack, Ellipticals, and Emails Have in Common As a first step, I reflected on how I see the computer. In our episode, we discussed that Brenda Laurel sees it as a theatre. I see it more as a gym. That’s because I find working with the computer super exhausting. But there are a few more parallels I want to draw. For instance, think about all these emails that come in and that need to be answered. This is really like the stair climber in the fitness centre, where the stairs just keep coming and coming… an endless flow of stairs, similar to the endless flow of emails. There is no destination we will reach, but they keep us feeling busy and productive. ...