The Barbarian Group. © Michael Moran.
For the past three years, Metropolis’s director of design innovation, Susan S. Szenasy has led Think Tank, a series of conversations on human-centered design. On July 19, 2017, she visited the Los Angeles-based firm Clive Wilkinson Architects to discuss AI in the workplace. What follows is a transcript of the conversation, edited for clarity by S.T. White.
Susan S. Szenasy, director of design innovation, Metropolis Magazine (SSS): Let’s begin our conversation about AI with Frances’ encounter with Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence system.
Frances Anderton, executive producer and host, ‘DnA Design & Architecture,’ KCRW (FA): I went to a computing conference, and when I arrived I filled out a screen with a few personal details, including my Twitter handle. I was led to a bar where a bar tender was following a recipe that Watson created according to predictions about my personality. The drink appeared, and it was gross. I felt mildly insulted. Then, Watson predicted what my daughter would want for Christmas based on some details about her. It showed a black sweater with huge gold hearts, which I thought was awful. Later, I showed it to her and said, would you ever like this sweater? And she said, yeah it’s pretty cool.
The cocktail was a fun way for IBM to showcase the robot’s ability to crunch data, and to introduce Watson in a social setting to businesses.
SSS: Ashley, you’ve found interesting ways to utilize technology in urban planning. Would you describe your vision?
Ashley Z. Hand, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, co-founder, CityFi (AZH): If we can operationalize data at massive scales and be able to understand how systems work with and against each other, technology can provide useful feedback loops. We can predict where a pothole is likely to happen and respond with a redesign of the service delivery model to avoid the pothole until it’s repaired. We can be proactive instead of reactive.
It’s a fundamentally transformational rethinking of the way government works. There is a lot of resiliency potential and we would have an increased ability to respond with the right-size service. A field inspector equipped with a tablet and real-time data would be able to better understand the context of an incident.