19’s to
21’s
hearth strings
//All WRITTEN
content are written by humans, yes shocking, we know.
This is a collection of desk research, somewhat curious conversations, and at times, uncomfortable chats with eight of our personal friends of diverse industries, lifestyles and age group to get a sense of what they think about AI being interwoven into human relationships. In order to go broad and deep into the conversation, we used a combination of our research techniques and the iceberg framework to facilitate our inquiry.
If you do not have time for a longer read,this section is a good summary of our Investigation
Framework
Framework
As we move beyond a single product of service, we found tools in Systemic Design particularly helpful for us to make sense of the qualitative data collected from our interviews. It gave us a systemic view of complex systems capturing the emerging behaviours, beliefs and opinions around the impact of AI on human relationships.
What is pushing or balancing the behaviours?
Causal Loop Diagram of our exploration on the impact of AI on human relationships
It helps us make sense and understand the system by mapping not only the relationships, but also be able to analyse what is reinforcing any pervasive behaviours in the system or what is helping to balance of scams and abuse.
Leverage Points
Who and where holds the power?
Extracting and breaking down the loops to explore each one further
By extracting the loops, it helped the team to unpack each loop with all its leverage points easily. Just to list a few examples:
Most references drawn during the interviews are towards scams, frauds or online manipulation or change in value system as a result of using AI.
The current push for AI comes mainly from big companies with huge investments in AI development, thus, mostly reinforcing loops in the system that drive more usage and dependence.
The technology is moving so fast that other actors in the system have yet to counter the push, hence very few balancing loops.
Let’s dive deeper into these three bigger themes!
Feel free to click into any topic that calls out to you first,
No Need To Go In Any Order
We asked about views on AI; past, present and future.
These are the sentiments expressed by the interviewees.
What do you think of the future of human relationships with interventions from AI?
Will it come to this ?
The following frameworks and models were used in our design process to help us listen to the system, to understand it and finally to envision desired possible future scenarios with AI in our relationships.
A research on the internet yielded very little results on policies on AI intervention in human relationships. However, there are alliances and task force set up by different countries on the use of AI in the professional context, due to the unintended consequences of AI, for e.g. many felt their jobs are threatened by AI, lack of transparency on the use of AI that takes a human work and replicates it in different ways.
Also, an alarmingly increasing number of scams and frauds, social media platforms like Meta has started added in ‘Made with AI’ labels. Coincidentally, Somia created an Instagram post with graphics, made by humans, but Instagram automatically labelled our post as ‘AI Info’.
Source: @somiacx IG
Most policies or framework revolves heavily around industries like healthcare, education, government or businesses. And if there are sections on social impact, they are typically on inclusion, diversity and gender. We have seen policies around transparency and data protection but have yet to see any policies that includes morality or ethical practices.
We took some time to brainstorm around the leverage points that were identified during our process. Here are some suggestions to consider. This is just a start and we invite you to get in touch if you have more ideas to share!
Preventative:
Responsible AI
1.
Behavioural Economics principles
Preventative:
Responsible AI
2.
Critical Delays in the system
Preventative:
Responsible AI
3.
Balancing loop: Advertising guidelines
Preventative:
Responsible AI
4.
Improve Structures: Community guidelines
Preventative:
Responsible AI
5.
Educating the young at school & at home
Preventative:
Responsible AI
6.
Improve Structures: Community guidelines
GoodHood Singapore aims to connect communities from ground up
Human connections as part of 'profit' or Key performance index instead of only more AI usage and financial numbers.
AI initiates and encourages small, informal gatherings, food sharing, book reading, based on interests in the community.
Preventative:
Responsible AI
7.
Educating the young at school & at home
Measures to put in place
Corrective:
Sustainable AI
8.
AI Scams/Frauds Helpline & Support
Corrective:
Sustainable AI
9.
Punish the perpetrators
Elton John