Altered States: Conversations with otherselves in the ambient surrounds

This workshop is directly concerned with shifting states of attention, belonging and care in contemporary digital lives.

Embracing the ‘ambient’ as expressive of contemporary states of digital immersion within performative socio-spatial contexts - collapsing the digital/physical divide - we explore the nature of attention as a focus for value-capture within contemporary digital ecosystems, with particular implications for the care economy.

In spaces of proliferating conversational devices and agencies, we invite reflection by participants on the kinds of attentional care practices enacted with ‘otherselves’ of care optimisation and wellbeing.

Through a series of workshop exercises and conversations with invited participants, we reflect collaboratively on what it means to enact practices of belonging and trust with otherselves in our ambient surrounds.

Ambient Surrounds & Attention Economy & Other Selves: A high level over-view of the context for the workshop

We describe the concept of your Future ‘Other Self’, the aspiration of this work. Workshop Activity Intro - Designing your future ‘other-self’

Build a scenario using one case study card deck

Workshop Activity in Teams -Card selections and allocations -Attention nudging brainstorms

SARAH’S INTRO We are gathered here to draw our attention to the ways in which the data created by our digitally-interacting selves is not only ‘information’ that represents activities and environments but also, increasingly, shapes the filters that determine and shape what we see, hear, learn and know about our world.

We are here because we all know that our attention is not only be filtered through apps and interfaces, but that it is also being ‘mined’, like gold dust, and turned into valuable new commodities to trade.

What we turn our attention to matters to us. It matters to a lot of people. A lot of people who are designing our digital futures, right now. Today we want to pay attention to the arts of attention mining.

As our digital devices and interfaces become increasingly intelligent and ambient, embedded in the spaces and the interfaces we use to navigate the world and make sense of it, they play an increasing role in shaping not only what we know ‘online’ but how we interface with the wider world.

In a well known work, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein describe the role of behavioural ‘nudging’ to encourage people to act in certain ways over others.

Our digital interfaces and experiences are full of these ‘nudges’, some gentle, others less so, which encourage us to act certain ways. We all know that when we act a certain way online, the data we generate is, in turn, used to train machine learning algorithms, which are in turn trained to ask certain things of us.

For social platforms, these algorithms are paid by advertisers to take us closer to their products - to nudge us towards the buy or subscribe button that comes after the like button.

For mobility platforms, the data we create when we use an app like Uber is, if we unwittingly allow it, used as location data for a host of different businesses building new products and insights that are looking to shape future real estate, future policy decisions, future health services.

Many of us here today know this. This is the ‘ambient’ state of attention mining and activity-mining that is now common. Value of attention economy figure insert here

This is the ‘closed loop’ that digital marketers love.

(Closed-loop marketing seeks to understand the customer, and then uses that information to better market to them. In this way, customer behavior, sales, and marketing all interact together in a closed “loop.”)

But we’re often passive data subjects in this attention economy. We’re simply the hapless customer. We’re just the data point, being sold. We don’t feel like we have much of a say in this.

But that’s different today.

Today we are here to be the Nudge Designers of Our Other-Selves.

We’re going to do that by paying attention to the kinds of data we want to be creating in the future.

That’s right, we’re going to be thinking about our future selves, our ‘other digital selves’ from the data trails upwards. We are going to be creative, collaborative and proactive about the kinds of data we want to be generating for these algorithms, if they are going to be going ahead and turning this data into behavioural nudges that increasingly shape our activities.

We’re also going to be creating otherselves that care for each other and for the planet. We’re not rapacious advertising folks who only care about making money for our clients - thats the good thing about being at a university isn’t it!

We want to create good otherselves, the kinds of people we can all aspire to be.

And hopefully, we’re going to have a bit of fun too.

WORKSHOP Activity (summary notes)

INTRO WORKSHOP TASKS So we’re here to design some behaviours that our otherselves will need to adopt if we want be achieve a better future for them. We’ve set some parameters in place to help us all do this. Firstly, the world is heading into a direction of more and more digital immersion. Our otherselves are working with more and more apps, ecosystems and interfaces. These devices are becoming more and more intelligent. So the task of each team is explore the kinds of digital behaviours needed to train algorithms that will nudge them towards a desired future state. We’ve all done this ‘self training’ before. When we choose to like lots of animal posts on Instagram, we’re training our algo to be nicer to us. When we like lots of stories about climate change, we start to despair about our climate more. CARDS TASKS You’ve been given the job of being Chief Nudge Strategist You have the opportunity to design a set of focus areas for behavioural nudging, to help your chosen ‘other self’ achieve their goals These cards describe a ‘feature set’ of your future desired other-self They give you a set of parameters for modeling the behaviour of your other-self towards its preferred future state What ethical focus they address What spatial scale they operate on What social scale What attitude they adopt What sensory modes they will use

Each table has a set of five coloured card selections. Team members can each choose one card from each ‘stack’, and add face up in the centre of the table. Once you’ve assembled five selected cards, work together as a team to construct a future otherself using these parameters. Can you give your otherselves a bit of a story? Who are they, where do they live, what are they doing with their lives. Feel free to draw them or just describe them on the whiteboards / butchers paper.

NEXT - Now it’s time to start designing the digital activities they will be engaged in, to train the data ecosystems they will need to nudge them to be this way. Here’s a set of example ecosystems they might be interacting with to nudge them. Hand out is passed to teams. Circular model with different domains. Get designing your activities! Consider the following domains of nudging and attention mining this person might be subjected to Content moderation ecosystems Streaming media ecosystems (Netflix et al) Social media filtering Professional ecosystems (LinkedIn, Teams) Personal AI assistants and chat bots Automated workplace scheduling, Suggestions for auto complete in writing, email, chat Auto-predict in search (e.g., Google),
Activity nudging Social media ecosystems (pings, notifications, checkmarks, reminders) Mobility ecosystems (car share, ride share, e-bikes, vehicle dashboards) Fitness apps (step count, breathing, standing, sleep reminders) Creativity apps (Drawing apps, making apps) Public space ecosystems (outdoor advertising platforms, smart light poles, CCTV cameras and computer vision services) Citizen science ecosystems (eBird etc) Metaverses & Gaming Engines

SUMMARY 5 min: Look at the options presented by the card deck, together, and if needed, clarify terminology (to the best of your ability, since the concepts are complex and have multiple meanings) 5 min max: Each person spends one minute picking up (to show the others) which four cards they would choose, or which cards they are drawn toward. 5 min max: Considering #4 above and the discussion so far, make a decision as a group about the “set” you want to use as a team, for this exercise (one card from each category. Options: turn them over and blind select if you have no strong preferences. If there is disagreement, just vote, play rock/paper/scissors, or flip a coin) Build a scenario by discussing, brainstorming, using materials available. Sketch out this brief scenario in a way to share with others

SB EDITS TO NARRATIVE - TO DISCUSS This option includes giving people an ‘ideal self’ in the form of a picture / poster that they then design the person’s digital ecosystem around People don’t choose their future state, they’re allocated one See here for an example image: https://health.gov/healthypeople or here KEY STEPS - WE MODEL AN EXERCISE TO THE WHOLE GROUP FIRST?? Describe the features of your future ‘other self’ you’ve chosen from the poster We consider the ways in which data is being collected to inform strategies and ideas for investment in their future - see here an example from the US Healthy Futures 2030 Your job as a team will be to think about the kinds of data this ‘other self’ you’ve chosen is going to be creating over the next decade to achieve their future Can you describe a ‘day in the life’ of them algorithmically in 2030? We will give you a set of ‘prompts’ designed to help you construct this future self through algorithmic tools The prompts are on the cards

CARDS You’ve been given the job of being Chief Nudge Strategist You have the opportunity to design a set of focus areas for behavioural nudging, to help your chosen ‘other self’ achieve their goals These cards describe a ‘feature set’ of your future desired other-self They give you a set of parameters for modeling the behaviour of your other-self towards its preferred future state What ethical focus they address What spatial scale they operate on What social scale What attitude they adopt What sensory modes they will use

YOUR TURN, TEAMS Team chooses one card from each of the 5 piles of cards (total 5 cards) So your ‘otherself’ may be someone who: Addresses inequality / in home community / works with others to achieve / adopts attitudes of resistance to the status quo / is audio + sound focused Your task as a team is to brainstorm the different kinds of digitally-mediated experiences and algorithmic ‘nudging’ you’d put in motion to achieve the ‘future state’ of the other self. See here for an alternate ‘data map’ of our otherself Consider the following domains of nudging and attention mining this person might be subjected to Content moderation ecosystems Streaming media ecosystems (Netflix et al) Social media Professional ecosystems (LinkedIn, Teams) Personal AI assistants and chat bots Activity nudging Mobility ecosystems (car share, ride share, e-bikes, vehicle dashboards) Fitness apps Creativity apps (Drawing apps, making apps) Public space ecosystems (outdoor advertising platforms, smart light poles, CCTV cameras and computer vision services) Citizen science ecosystems (eBird etc) Metaverses & Gaming Engines

Current State > Future State Second exercise Let’s go deeper and start to do some nudging In other words, to get to this place: What do these five cards require of people when they are interacting with digital technologies, and the kinds of behavioural nudging they want their algorithms to do for them? CARDS Spatial scales of practice (BLUE)

Home Street Local area or Community City/Region Nation

Social scales of practice (RED) Individual/Personal Family Friends Co-Workers Communities of interest

Attitude/value Care Resistance Contentment Belonging Curiosity

Sensory Focus Physical Acts Listening Talking/Speaking Watching Gathering

Problem Domain Inequality Endangered Species Climate Change Health and Wellbeing Disease