How IAs Can Shape the Future of Human-AI Collaboration

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging in every industry and as it does, members of our practice may respond with mixtures of awe, confusion, concern and inspiration. In our work, we seek to expand collaboration between the human and machine, placing the machine in a role of enabling human outcomes and understanding. While sometimes we hear people describe AI as an “emerging intelligence” it is, in truth, the emergent collaboration with humans that fosters positive personal, societal, and environmental outcomes. This collaboration places Information Architects in a central role for developing valuable AI capabilities.

In this talk we’ll introduce three scenarios as an approachable entry point to explore the relationship between AI systems and the people engaged with them. The scenarios demonstrate that AI systems and their human counterparts both bring unique strengths and weaknesses to the relationship, and as they are both (somewhat) autonomous entities, their interactions require coordination and negotiation. With these scenarios as introduction, we will draw on our range of experiences to outline a framework that IAs can take away to help them think about the key issues in design for AI systems. The framework encompasses items that are common across various types of design for AI, as well as items that are unique to particular tools, projects and contexts.