062 - Why Ben Shneiderman is Writing a Book on the Importance of Designing Human-Centered AI

Ben Shneiderman is a leading figure in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI).  Having founded one of the oldest HCI research centers in the country at the University of Maryland in 1983, Shneiderman has been intently studying the design of computer technology and its use by humans. Currently, Ben is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Maryland and is working on a new book on human-centered artificial intelligence.   I’m so excited to welcome this expert from the field of UX and design to today’s episode of Experiencing Data! Ben and I talked a lot about the complex intersection of human-centered design and AI systems.   In our chat, we covered: Ben's career studying human-computer interaction and computer science. (0:30) 'Building a culture of safety': Creating and designing ‘safe, reliable and trustworthy’ AI systems. (3:55) 'Like zoning boards': Why Ben thinks we need independent oversight of privately created AI. (12:56) 'There’s no such thing as an autonomous device': Designing human control into AI systems. (18:16) A/B testing, usability testing and controlled experiments: The power of research in designing good user experiences. (21:08) Designing ‘comprehensible, predictable, and controllable’ user interfaces for explainable AI systems and why [explainable] XAI matters. (30:34) Ben's upcoming book on human-centered AI. (35:55) Resources and Links: People-Centered Internet: https://peoplecentered.net/ Designing the User Interface (one of Ben’s earlier books): https://www.amazon.com/Designing-User-Interface-Human-Computer-Interaction/dp/013438038X Bridging the Gap Between Ethics and Practice: https://doi.org/10.1145/3419764 Partnership on AI: https://www.partnershiponai.org/ AI incident database: https://www.partnershiponai.org/aiincidentdatabase/ University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab: https://hcil.umd.edu/ ACM Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces: https://iui.acm.org/2021/hcai_tutorial.html Human-Computer Interaction Lab, University of Maryland, Annual Symposium: https://hcil.umd.edu/tutorial-human-centered-ai/ Ben on Twitter: https://twitter.com/benbendc   Quotes from Today’s Episode The world of AI has certainly grown and blossomed — it’s the hot topic everywhere you go. It’s the hot topic among businesses around the world — governments are launching agencies to monitor AI and are also making regulatory moves and rules. … People want explainable AI; they want responsible AI; they want safe, reliable, and trustworthy AI. They want a lot of things, but they’re not always sure how to get them. The world of human-computer interaction has a long history of giving people what they want, and what they need. That blending seems like a natural way for AI to grow and to accommodate the needs of real people who have real problems. And not only the methods for studying the users, but the rules, the principles, the guidelines for making it happen. So, that’s where the action is. Of course, what we really want from AI is to make our world a better place, and that’s a tall order, but we start by talking about the things that matter — the human values: human rights, access to justice, and the dignity of every person. We want to support individual goals, a person’s sense of self-efficacy — they can do what they need to in the world, their creativity, their responsibility, and their social connections; they want to reach out to people. So, those are the sort of high aspirational goals that become the hard work of figuring out how to build it. And that’s where we want to go. - Ben (2:05)   The software engineering teams creating AI systems have got real work to do. They need the right kind of workflows, engineering patterns, and Agile development methods that will work for AI. The AI world is different because it’s not just programming, but it also involves the use of data that’s used for training. The key distinction is that the data tha