Can       imagining       alternative       fictional       realities    prompt      us       to       situate       ourselves       and     our    communities       on       the       internet       differently      ?




Will You Eat Me, Dutch Design Weekend, Eindhoven, October 2024.

















What? - The Experience










The frameworks that inform the innovation and development of deep learning AI applications are embedded with layers of bias in the status quo. Kate Crawford in Atlas of AI, argues the far-reaching harms of biased technological systems. These algorithms, in practice, not only perpetuate the bias they are built on but also amplify the existing systems of discrimination.

            
Engaging with Dunne and Raby’s what-if methodology of speculative design fiction, ‘Becoming (More)Human’ constructs a probable future world in 2029, where

MESIF - Marker of Emotional Stability, Intelligence, and Functionality

has become a universalised scoring system that demarcates the function of an individual in society. This system is an aggregate score of five AI-driven sub-scoring systems - Happiness Meter, Smile Scale, Resting Factor, Labour Rate and Social Life Expectancy. These sub-systems are based on the AI research and experiments of 2024 - Mental-Health Biomarkers, Computer Vision, Movement Analysis, Office Monitoring, and Social Media AI tools, respectively.















Methodologies

Thinking through Making | Narrative Building | Participatory Design | Research through VR | Speculative Fictions


Collaborators

Team Members
(Collective Research + Narrative Building + Execution)

Unity Designer -
Yashika Goel
3D Maker - Emerald Chen
Audio Narrative - Boluwatife Konuwale


Tools and Mediums

Virtual Reality > Immersive Experience >
Unity for VR Development 












< W o r k s h o p
 B l u e p r i n t >

June
2024






Workshop #1

Running Time - 2 - 3 hrs
Date - TBD
Location - RCA, Kensington
12-3 PM

Exhuming Dead Yearnings


Pre Workshop -
  1. Think of a woman who seeded transformative energy in you in the past.
  2. Bring this story of change to the park.
  3. Please bring umbrellas.


Workshop -
  1. Circle of Building Familiarity - Share your name and one thing you are hyper aware of right now, and one thing that is calming. This goes around the circle. (15-20 mins)
  2. Poem Recitation - Grandmother by Kamala Das - to set up the environment as an exchange and sharing of stories. (10)
  3. Building Partnerships - Each person partners up with the person to their right. (5-10)
  4. Sharing Change - They share the stories of change with each other. (15-20)
  5. Designing Gratitude - Each pair is invited to design a sonic experience of expressing gratitude to the woman who instilled change in them. Consider what you would like them to hear, how would they navigate this experience, build an experience for those women that helped us change and become who we are today. (25-30) - listening
  6. Navigating the Experience - Each pair takes other participants on a journey through their experiences.(15-20)
  7. Circle of Conversations - Participants hold an open discussion about how they felt while designing, experiencing, and post the experience.(20). Vessels for tomorrow.
  8. End with a recitation of a poem by Emily Dickinson.(5)


Post Workshop -
Participants are invited to share their insights, reflections, feedback, and more stories either through sound recordings or through one-on-one interviews.





Workshop #2

Running Time - 3 - 4 hrs
Location - Undecided.
12-4 PM


Reviving Today’s Yearnings


Pre Workshop -
  1. Think of something you yearn to change, could be something personal, more systemic, educational, spiritual, cultural, anything.
  2. Bring a form of technology you use.
  3. Bring an element of your art/ design practice to the park.


Workshop -
  1. Circle of Familiarity - Share your names and a line about what you do and what excites you about it. (15-20 minutes)
  2. Sharing the story of Bliss, by Katherine Mansfield/ Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. (15)
  3. Building Pairs.(5-10)
  4. Discuss and combine your yearnings with your partners.(15-25)
  5. Design a storytelling performance using your choice of technology and your practice to translate this yearning into a listening experience for your fellow participants to imbibe this feeling of yearning in themselves. (30 - 45)
  6. (Prompted hints - directed activities.(policy, speech etc.) - a change in personal life and a change in the society - Design a protest poster or a protest chant)
  7. Storytelling - Each group builds a storytelling experience and performs their story, to be listened to and watched by the other participants. (15 - 25)
  8. Circle of Conversations - Discussions on how it felt, designing, witnessing, performing, and what we feel.(20) (participant responses as vessels for tomorrow)
  9. Ending with your yearning sounds like mine. How your yearning has informed mine.(10)


Post Workshop -
Participants are invited to share their insights, reflections, feedback, and more stories either through sound recordings or through one-on-one interviews.





Workshop #3


Running Time - 3 - 4 hrs
Location - Lounge Bar, Kensington.
5-8 PM.


Promising New Yearnings


Pre Workshop -
  1. Bring an object in any form - an image, a material, a tangible object, sound, playlist etc. that gives you a feeling of joy and fulfilment.


Workshop -
  1. Circle of Familiarity - Share your names and a sound of what joy feels like for you, everyone repeats the sound. (15-20)
  2. BEGINNING with the VNS Matrix Manifesto for technological future (5-10)
  3. Describing of Manifesto, introducing manifesto (15-20)  
  4. Building groups of three. (5)
  5. Manifesto-ing - Each group builds a manifesto for an imagined future and translates the propagation of their joy into the future. (30-45)
  6. Sharing Joy - Each group recites their manifesto, and we follow with our reflections. (20-30)
  7. Deconstructing Manifesto - The group splits into individuals and each participant is invited to take inspiration, words, elements into creating a personal manifesto for their personal imagined future. (15-20)(queer manifesto - SPIT)
  8. Each person is invited to VOICE their manifesto and each participant who feels connected joins them in sharing their manifesto. (15-20) sharing out loud.
  9. Circle of Promises - We discuss how it felt building the manifesto, what are our concerns, thoughts, feelings, designing, witnessing, performing. (30)


Post Workshop -
Participants are invited to share their insights, reflections, feedback, and more stories either through sound recordings or through one-on-one interviews.














Why? - The Signals















Machine Yearning, Digital Design Weekend, London Design Week, Victoria and Albert Museum, September 2024.
Machine Yearning, Digital Design Weekend, London Design Week, Victoria and Albert Museum, September 2024.
Machine Yearning, Digital Design Weekend, London Design Week, Victoria and Albert Museum, September 2024.



















< S  i  g  n  
a  l  s >


Why  speculate  VR  Food  Futures ?

















As climate change fundamentally alters our food production capabilities, there's an urgent need to reimagine our relationship with food consumption. While this future might seem distant, the decisions we make today directly shape tomorrow's dining table.

"Will You Eat Me?" emerged as a response to this critical juncture, using virtual reality not just as a technological tool, but as a medium for embodied storytelling that bridges the gap between current food practices and potential future realities. The project deliberately employs familiar actions - like building a burger - to make abstract concepts about food sustainability tangible and personally relevant. By contrasting comfortable food memories with unfamiliar future alternatives, the experience creates a space for meaningful discourse about food sustainability while remaining accessible to diverse audiences.

































Signal - Softbank and their Emotion AI
1.  Emotion Cancelling AI that is built for better customer srvice by altering emotional states of the employees through changing tones of customer speech, and  AI triggered video montage to calm and relax the employee.

Refer here.




Signal  -  Bumble  AI Assistant?

2. Bumble co-founder suggesting an AI Concierge that would date other people’s AI concierge so you don’t have to talk to anyone and everyone.

Refer here.




Signal - AI Therapists
3. Masses increasingly seeking AI advice for their mental health concerns through AI chatbots and  AI therapist bots, disregarding harm enacted through computational bias.

Refer here and here.














How? - The Methodologies and Research

















Machine Yearning, Digital Design Weekend, London Design Week, Victoria and Albert Museum, September 2024.



























< M  e  t  h  o  d
o  l  o  g  i  e  s  +  
P  r  o  c  e  s  s >



How does the Machine Learn?














Chapter Four
Feedback Reflections
Citations
7












Chapter
One




<G a t h e r i n g
D a t a >




















Datasets are active participants in defining the function of machine learning models. Data is primarily human. So,

How might we ethically collect data to programme equitable AI models and systems?
















Extractivist Data Methodologies
Ethical + Feminist Data Methodologies




Dubious or Hidden or False Consent and Permission
Informed Consent


Hidden use of Data -
The Function of Data Sharing is not Defined or Shared
Transparency about Outcomes Generated 
from Use of Shared Data


Reproduction of Biases
through Inappropriate or Biased Labelling
Diverse and Communal Collection
Allows for Dilution of Biases






















Adopting, learning and practicing with human first data methods, I designed a 3 part workshop focusing on
co-creating narratives, sharing, and collecting.
Below is a fundamental flow for each part, and you can access the blueprint for each workshop here.

















Chapter
Two










< (Un)P r o g r a m m i n g
Y e a r n i n g >











This was my first AI coding project, so post my call for collaboration was answered in the form of a brilliant math & coding whiz, Anushka Aggarwal, we began with what would be

weeks of back and forth developing each iteration, each time optimising to achieve our evolving purpose.



































I t e r a t i o n #1
The first draft code was programmed to generate textual interpreted responses using the short story Bliss by Katherine Mansfield as the input data. I wanted to see how similar, or different the responses would be, following a given data set, what does the model produce. The responses were varied, not repetitive, rather weirdly interpretive - conclusion - fine tuning a model generates legible but irregular responses. There is some sense to be derived from it.






I t e r a t i o n #2
The next development was to add Text to speech, a simple experiment in building the audio interaction. Especially for the phrases where words weren’t generated rather blanks, or symbols were generated, I wanted to learn how the model would convert it into speech, and how would that interaction feel for us.






I t e r a t i o n #3
The next test was using the developed dataset as test to review the generated responses. Without prompting, this would be the first raw generation of the model’s understanding of the collected yearnings. Needless to say, all of it was very fascinating, a repository of stories from AI’s perspective, very useless, and very much invoking curiosity of the audience. This version was also exhibited for my graduate project.






I t e r a t i o n #4
Albeit, a meaningful listening experience, the experience did not feel enough to develops feedback loop in terms of human-ai interaction enough for people to link it to AI, and initiate further conversation. So, the next natural step was to build a speech-to-text setup, wherein the model would take the spoken word as prompt and input data, and generate speech in response to that. I tested this model with a smaller dataset, and then with the collected dataset.


































Chapter
Three

< D e s i g n i n g
t h e
E x p e r i e n c e >




















Interacting with the custom yearning AI could have been a 3D visualised digital character embodying the voices of yearning but my primary enquiry was -
How might we utilise the feeling of
awe as a transformative tool for cultivating critical reflection among the masses who make and use AI?










So, I designed a vessel.


Yearning voiced from fibreplastic belly.
A cultural vessel housing stories.
Bottled-up emotions.
The talking well.
An artefact in time; a future artefact.
The echoing cave.
and more.





1.

What are the possible forms that the custom AI could embody?































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