Jesse Josua Benjamin

Lancaster University | LU · Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA)

Design research is important for understanding and interrogating how emerging technologies shape human experience. However, design research with Machine Learning (ML) is relatively underdeveloped. Crucially, designers have not found a grasp on ML uncertainty as a design opportunity rather than an obstacle. The technical literature points to data an...

Interpretability has become a key objective in the research, development and implementation of machine learning algorithms. However, existing notions of interpretability may not be conducive to how meaning emerges in algorithmic systems that employ ML algorithms. In this provocation, we propose that hermeneutic analyses can be used to probe assumpt...

Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are widely deployed in smartphone photography; and prompt-based image synthesis models have rapidly become commonplace. In this paper, we describe a Research-through-Design (RtD) project which explores this shift in the means and modes of image production via the creation and use of the Entoptic Field Camer...

In my doctoral research, I am concerned with making machine learning (ML) technologies accessible as a design material using post-phenomenological investigations. I use the latter framework because, on the one hand, it has become particularly widespread in HCI design research given its focus on technological mediation, or the shaping of subjectivit...

In this workshop, we will venture into the current state of co-design for imagining and creating smart objects and services within the context of “the home”. Together with a diverse group of workshop participants, we will conduct two rounds of co-designing which gives each of the participants the opportunity to explore two of the following three to...

Participatory Design means recognizing that those who will be affected by a future technology should have an active say in its creation. Yet, despite continuous interest in involving people as future users and consumers into designing novel and innovative future technology, participatory approaches in technology design remain relatively underdevelo...

Previous research has shown the influence of smell on emotions, memories, and body image. However, most of this work has taken place in laboratory settings and little is known about the influence of smell in real-world environments. In this paper, we present novel insights gained from a field study investigating the emotional effect of smell on mem...

During a research project in which we developed a machine learning (ML) driven visualization system for non-ML experts, we reflected on interpretability research in ML, computer-supported collaborative work and human-computer interaction. We found that while there are manifold technical approaches, these often focus on ML experts and are evaluated...

During a research project in which we developed a machine learning (ML) driven visualization system for non-ML experts, we reflected on interpretability research in ML, computer-supported collaborative work and human-computer interaction. We found that while there are manifold technical approaches, these often focus on ML experts and are evaluated...

In the future, more and more systems will be powered by AI. This may exacerbate existing blind spots in explainability research, such as focusing on outputs of an individual AI pipeline as opposed to a holistic and integrative view on the system dynamics of data, algorithms, stakeholders, context and their respective interactions. AI systems will i...

The global infrastructure of the Web, designed as an open and transparent system, has a significant impact on our society. However, algorithmic systems of corporate entities that neglect those principles increasingly populated the Web. Typical representatives of these algorithmic systems are recommender systems that influence our society both on a...

Forschen und Gestalten sind experimentelle Vorgehensweisen, die darauf ausgerichtet sind, etwas Neues, noch nicht Existierendes hervorzubringen. Sie haben beide Projektcharakter, denn sie führen an einen Nullpunkt des Wissens. Doch welche Strategien und Verfahren sind es, die aus diesem Nichtwissen, diesen Vermutungen und Ideen zu konkreten Ergebni...

Project IKON aims to explore potentials for transferring knowledge generated in research projects at a major Berlin research institution, the Museum für Naturkunde (MfN, natural history museum). Knowledge transfer concerns both the exchange of knowledge among the employees (researchers as well as communicators or management staff), and with the bro...

Machine learning systems are ubiquitous in various kinds of digital applications and have a huge impact on our everyday life. But a lack of explainability and interpretability of such systems hinders meaningful participation by people, especially by those without a technical background. Interactive visual interfaces (e.g., providing means for manip...

Interpretation of machine learning results is a major challenge for non-technical experts, with visualization being a common approach to support this process. For instance, interpretation of clustering results is usually based on scatterplots that provide information about cluster characteristics implicitly through the relative location of objects....

Position paper for the Codesigning AI Futures Workshop (https://codesigningaifutures.wordpress.com/) at the 2019 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference.

Today's algorithmic systems are increasingly ubiquitous, while advancements in machine learning, especially deep learning, have made them nearly incomprehensible in their functioning. With the growing presence of these algorith-mic systems for supporting or even replacing human decision making, contemporary designers and engineers in both academia...

Evaluating and selecting ideas is a critical and time-consuming step in collaborative ideation, making computational support for this task a desired research goal. However, existing automatic approaches to idea selection might eliminate valuable ideas. In this work we combine automatic approaches with human sensemaking. Kaleidoscope is an explorato...

Recent research suggests that in visual analytics tasks, collaborative sensemaking relies on successful collaboration between humans and software agents. To advance the understanding of such collaboration, we consider that both, the human and the software agent, possess a form of situational awareness which, when coordinated, can enrich the collabo...

Algorithms increasingly impact on human-decision making; they are used to stimulate, inform, control and react to human activities. Instead of designing systems that hide the inner working of algorithms, i.e. that are opaque, there is a pressing need to explain the decisions made by algorithmic processes to users. Algorithmic systems should communi...

In this interdisciplinary research project, I aim to combine philosophy of technology and computer science in order to develop a design methodology for algorithm awareness. The latter has become an emergent field of research due to the increasing influence of automated processes on everyday life. In this abstract, I show how current research is not...

The internal transfer of knowledge is a critical success factor for research organisations. However, little emphasis is placed on the intra-organisational transfer of knowledge due to the focus on knowledge transfer to external stakeholders. We introduce our research in progress project that aims to uncover opportunities for the intra-organisationa...

The internal transfer of knowledge is a critical success factor for research organisations. However, little emphasis is placed on the intra-organisa-tional transfer of knowledge due to the focus on knowledge transfer to external stakeholders. We introduce our research in progress project that aims to uncover opportunities for the intra-organisation...

Project poster for the 5th AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing, Quebec City, Canada

Research-intensive organizations struggle to get an actionable overview of their research activities. We report on a preliminary architecture of a socio-technical system that aims to uncover the potential for internal transfer of knowledge and to facilitate this transfer in research-intensive organizations. We discuss two important roles in this hu...

Twenty-first century media, such as social networking platforms, control their vast computational infrastructure by anticipating their users’ actions and synchronously simulating future events. For this research project, the phenomenon of emotional contagion in networked media is used as an impetus, having been evidenced by manipulating those antic...

Bachelor Thesis from the course Interaction Design at the BTK University for Art & Design (GERMAN) on the untapped potentials of virtual space for identity articulation.

The thesis for this (soon to be published) term paper is that we, as participants in online social media, are not our users or other avatars but rather curators of them, confronted with limiting mechanisms and constricting frames. In german, translation is in progress.