Summary:
The main objective of this paper is to present the significance and benefit of integrating the interactive system with artificial intelligence. The author made a point that the current focus on AI limited on full automation, which may lead to a mislead due to inappropriate assumptions or biased training data. As a result, users may rely excessively on computational advice, which may result in the loss of critical participation and domain expertise. To address this issue, the author proposed the idea that integrates AI agency and automation to enhance human ability instead of replacing human work. This approach aims to increase human productivity while preserving the human sense of control and responsibility. In order to investigate the most effective way of integrating the automated method into user-centric interactive systems, the paper examined the strategies. Designing shared representations of possible actions that enable people to perform computational reasoning around tasks so that people can view, select, modify, or cancel algorithm suggestions. Then, the author review three practical implementations that applied principles proposed as above: domain-specific language (DSL) for data transformation called Wrangle; an interactive system for data visualization and exploration, predictive translation memory (PTM) project. Finally, the author discussed the design property and user studies of these three projects.
Reflection:
I really like the idea that the primary goal of AI should be enhancing humans not replace humans. I think the author made a good point that currently, people tend to focus too much on the fully automated implementation of AI. The claim that AI can replace humans is even more exaggerated. Humans indeed make mistakes in judgment due to insufficient information or cognitive biases. However, human has the irreplaceable creativity and in-depth understanding of professional domain knowledge. Even with the help of dominant computing power and exhaustive data form computers, AI institutions cannot achieve it. Thus, I cannot more agree with that “need well-thought-out interactions of humans and computers to solve our most pressing problems.”
The reason why I am interested and passionate about HCI is that the elegant of HCI is that the subtle and simple design idea could have a huge impact on the overall performance. We are not seeking to develop a new interactive system or fancy interface, but design from a humble direction to make subtle and rational adjustments to improve user experience without causing any interruption. Just as the example demonstrated in the paper: spelling and grammar checking routines included within the word processor.
On the other hand, user feedback in the article caught my attention: “These related views are so good, but it’s also spoiling that I start thinking less. I am not sure if that’s really a good thing”. This is really impressive. For a long time, we have been pursuing how to facilitate human work efficiently and easily through using AI or interactive design to replace some tedious and later even developed to let machines to learn adaptively instead of human thinking. However, this comment just pointed out the question, which also stated in the paper that should we accept having the computer ‘think for us’? This is indeed a problem that we need to consider when designing.
Questions:
- What do you think about the opinion that AI should “enhancing us, not replacing us”? Are you agree with the idea that we should integrate AI with IA perspectives?
- Which do you support more? Direct manipulation, or interface agents? Why?
- Take the data visualization system as an example. Would you like the system to provide adaptive recommendations? Do you think it’s helpful or annoying? Do you think it is spoiling and stop you from thinking initiative?
Hi, for the first question, I think the ultimate goal of AI is replacing human, let computers and robots do everything what human can do. But it is unrealistic right now. So, I think “enhance us” is a good idea. Thus, we can improve the efficiency in AI system, and we can also find and study human’s role in a system, which can help us research how to replace human.
I think the authors proposed an interesting idea. Instead of building AIs which can replace human, they think that it is better to let AI assist human by both automated suggestions and direct manipulation. I agree with this idea. In many tasks, humans play an essential role and AI cannot replace them. With the proposed idea, both humans’ and AIs’ strengths are leveraged.
From my point, I prefer to let AI manipulate directly. However, AI cannot replace humans in some aspects. So, I think it is more appropriate to combine both automated suggestions and direct manipulation.
I think the visualization tool is useful for me. I am not good at designing things myself, so it would be great if an AI can advise me on it.