Why we shouldn’t let Hollywood dictate UX design

What do you think of when someone mentions ‘artificial intelligence’? Invariably, someone will bring up Terminator’s Skynet. Others might mention Jarvis, Tony Stark’s/Iron Man’s butler. Less common, but still repeated: Samantha (Her), HAL 9000 (Space Odyssey), R2D2/C3-PO (Star Wars).

AI personality alignments

By allowing Hollywood to influence user experience in the emerging field of AI, what we end up with is another Minority Report trap. Clients and users expect a Hollywood-like interface and companies race to catch up with a pre-designed future.

No one is immune to pop culture. I’ll bet every penny that most in Silicon Valley dream of being the next Tony Stark, the next Iron Man. They think: “I have the skills, I have the capital, why not make my childhood fantasy come true?”

pew pew boom!

The biggest and most problematic issue is limitation. Jarvis, Samantha, Skynet’s Terminator, etc. inherit the legacy of stereotypes inside the culture of Hollywood. These AI personas are dreamed of by men for other men. Specifically, they’re created to serve men in power, make men even more powerful or to reaffirm power already held.

New Study Shows No Diversity in Hollywood, Business Insider Aug 5, 2015

This is reflected in the emerging field of AI startups and companies. Like Hollywood, most AIs are envisioned by men.

Samantha (Her) is interesting since it’s based on the existing Siri (a case of technology influencing Hollywood), while Evi from Amazon and Amy from X.ai share qualities to both Samantha and Siri. Facebook M, Microsoft Cortana are variations of JARVIS. Even Howdy, is based on R2-D2.

If we’re going to be truly disruptive, we have to hold ourselves accountable to what we create. It’s easy to riff off an AI persona from Hollywood, but by doing so we limit ourselves in the range of personalities that an AI can represent. Essentially, we lock ourselves into perpetuating a culture that belongs in the past, not a possible future.

If Hollywood endings for AI end so badly, do we want to continue down the same path? What if we could design our way out of a potential apocalypse by refusing the narratives laid down before us?