#15 can AI be brat?
(humans say no)
Brat summer🍏
“You are just that girl who is a little messy and maybe says dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but then also maybe has a breakdown but parties through it. It is honest, blunt and a little bit volatile. That’s Brat.”
Those of us on the Voice This! team are bonded together by 2 great loves: AI technology and pop culture. That said, we can no longer stay silent about this year’s single greatest marketing strategy: Brat.
This year, Charli xcx asked us to embrace the part of ourselves that’s a little bit messy, hedonistic, and, wholly, imperfect. So imperfect, in fact, that the album cover is quite literally pixelated font on a neon green background. Brat is loud, abrasive. It goes against the clean-girl aesthetic. It goes against what we might consider beautiful. It’s unapologetic about being rough around the edges. It’s human.
Could AI have come up with Brat or any other purposeful misuse of graphic design? We don’t think so. AI is usually employed to show us the refined outcome— the polish and complexity that humans crave but can’t attain due to lack of talent or resources. Put differently: AI isn’t being trained to be imperfect, and why should it? That’s us, babe.
Messy is not just a part of the human experience, it’s an attention grabber. Messy engages our participation. We stop and stare, trying to process mismatching fonts, clashing colors, or conflicting themes. We can stop to criticize, or pause and reflect. At least with Brat, we’re not bored.
2024 CxD news so far
May
Companies are rehiring CxDs? 👀 Instacart, Amazon, and Meta have all listed 1 or more positions for Conversation Designers since May despite 2023 layoffs.
Jun
Unparsed 2024 was a massive party!! Unparsed boasted over 500 attendees in-person in London and online, with a speaker lineup that included both CxD legends as well as influential developers in the space. Voice This’ own Elaine Anzaldo gave a talk on Designing for Ray-Ban Meta.
Jul
Our favorite online CxD Hillary Black is back!! introducing her “Summer Series”: a series of workshops targeted toward jobseekers in CxD. (and yes, as you might’ve seen on LinkedIn, we’re having her as a guest on Voice This! Podcast🎙️)
Emily Banzhaf and Giulia van den Winkel wrapped up the first installment of Convers(AI)tions, a series of 12 live panels, including 42 different panelists!! Thank you for your service 💜
Aug
Not so much a headline, but rather a silent trend: Are CxD leaders still called CxD? Greg Bennett is now “Head of Prompt Engineering” and Cathy Pearl is “UX Lead on Gemini”. Has anyone else noticed this shift?
AI Corner 📚
Highly suggested reading
⭐️ Embodying the Machine ⭐️ by Michelle Cortese: a large anthology on the experiential implications of increased embodiment in everyday technology. Read the first few chapters on embodyingthemachine.com [password: hedonomics]
AI Literature
[From the archives] Chatbots could one day replace search engines. Here’s why that’s a terrible idea. - MIT Technology Review https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/03/29/1048439/chatbots-replace-search-engine-terrible-idea/
AI has a problem with objectifying women - https://huggingface.co/blog/sasha/objectifying-women-in-ai
AI chatbots are intruding into online communities where people are trying to connect with other humans - https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-online-communities-where-people-are-trying-to-connect-with-other-humans-229473
What no one tells you about personalization - https://uxdesign.cc/what-no-one-tells-you-about-personalization-150c9064ae8e
Related: [Config 2024] Defining the relationship (between humans and AI)
The Risks of Botshit - https://hbr.org/2024/07/the-risks-of-botshit
CHI 2024 Editors’ Choice - https://medium.com/human-centered-ai/chi-2024-editors-choice-d5f92c592ee5
“[T]he AI Pin was met with overwhelmingly negative reviews. Our own David Pierce said it “just doesn’t work,” and Marques Brownlee called it “the worst product” he’s ever reviewed. Now, Humane is attempting to stabilize its operations and maintain confidence among staff and potential acquirers.” - https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/7/24211339/humane-ai-pin-more-daily-returns-than-sales
“[ChatGPT] participates in conversation by receiving and responding to voice commands, images and videos,” and “includes language expressing shared bonds, such as ‘This is our last day together,’ […] ‘While these instances appear benign, they signal a need for continued investigation into how these effects might manifest over longer periods of time.’” - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/style/openai-chatgpt-voice.html
Thanks for Reading This!
Voice This! Newsletter is a collective effort by Millani Jayasingkam, Kritika Yadav, and Elaine Anzaldo. Opinions expressed are solely our own and do not express the views or opinions of our employers.