Lecture : The Human in the Design

Speaker : Gerhard Fischer
Lecture : The Human in the Design - Trade-offs between Artificial Intelligence and Human-Centered Design

The event presents a special guest lecture by human-machine research pioneer, Gerhard Fischer, visiting from Colorado, USA. Gerhard's work has explored theoretical frameworks and system developments for human-computer interaction and he co-founded conferences in Germany on “Mensch-Maschine Kommunikation” (1980) and “Software Ergonomics” (1983). Later work at CU Boulder was centered on domain-oriented design environments, critiquing systems, and the exploration of high-functionality environments. In 1994, the Center for LifeLong Learning & Design was founded and in the following years, he (in close collaboration with numerous colleagues, including Ernesto Arias, Hal Eden, Michael Eisenberg, and Walter Kintsch and a large number of PhD students) explored themes in meta-design, social creativity, cultures of participation, computer-supported collaborative learning, support environments for people with cognitive disabilities, and collaborative problem solving and decision making with table-top computing environments.

The Future of Digitalization is not out there to be discovered — it will be designed. In design, trade-offs are universal because there are no best solutions independent of goals, objectives, and values, specifically for systemic, ill-defined, and wicked problems such as Artificial Intelligence and Human-Centered Design.
Grounded in research activities from a broad spectrum of different disciplines and an analysis from our research over the last two decades, the presentation will critically analyze the current hype about Artificial Intelligence by contrasting it with the objectives pursued by Human-Centered Design.