Cassandra: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 15:10, 11 June 2015

Cassandra
Creator	Lucia Dossin
Year	2015
Bio	Lucia Dossin (BR/NL) has a background in architecture and webdesign. She works at the intersection of art and design, currently focusing on the interactions between humans and computers and their implications in subjectivity, language and politics.
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Website	http://www.luciadossin.net

Cassandra is a voice-operated chatbot, aimed at making psychological profiles during the conversations. These profiles are pie charts where every color corresponds to a personality attribute. The graphics are accompanied by a short analysis and a list of companies possibly interested in the profile. In this sense, the bot provides data that can act as a mediator in services like job-seeking and dating. The profile then becomes a digital representation of the user and can be used as a kind of digital key to personalize every gadget in the near future of the Internet of Things. Make your life easier, let Cassandra make a digital copy of you.

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 |Description=Cassandra is a voice-operated chatbot, aimed at making psychological profiles during the conversations. These profiles are pie charts where every color corresponds to a personality attribute. The graphics are accompanied by a short analysis and a list of companies possibly interested in the profile. In this sense, the bot provides data that can act as a mediator in services like job-seeking and dating. The profile then becomes a digital representation of the user and can be used as a kind of digital key to personalize every gadget in the near future of the Internet of Things. Make your life easier, let Cassandra make a digital copy of you.
 |Catalog-Text1=[[File:Cassandra-card.png]] (I'm working on the slogan, so the image might change. I will keep the number and format of images though.)
-|Catalog-Text2=With a background in webdesign, things like interface design and user-friendliness are my daily concerns. During these 2 years at Piet Zwart Institute I have been researching the relationship between user-friendliness and the invisibility of technology. My graduation project, Cassandra, is built upon 3 main aspects: user data as content, voice as interface and Eliza (Joseph Weizenbaum, 1964/1966) as engine.
+|Catalog-Text2=With a background in webdesign, things like interface design and user-friendliness are my daily concerns. During these 2 years at Piet Zwart Institute I have been researching the relationship between user-friendliness and the invisibility of technology. My graduation project, Cassandra, is built upon 3 main aspects: '''user data''' as content, '''voice''' as interface and '''ELIZA''' (Joseph Weizenbaum's program, written in 1964/1966) as engine.
 ==User Data==
-Interaction is a relationship between at least two parts. Whenever only one part has access to information, we can say there is a power assymetry. This is one of my points of interest in this research.
+Interaction is a relationship between at least two parts. Whenever only one part has access to information, we can say there is a power asymmetry. This is one of my points of interest in this research.
 User generated data is the common input format to feed smart technologies, a substitute for direct user interaction or input – something I will call passive interaction. I argue that the shift from active to passive interaction provides not only the advertised ease of use but also an experience where the user loses power. There is certainly a trade-off, I am just not sure if the price in the long-term is clear to the user.
 ==Voice==
-Besides the symbolic importance of the voice as a personal and embodied human asset, a voice interface is also a good reference to the illusion of the 'no-interface' (widely understood as non-visual). I call it an illusion because in fact – instead of removing – it adds one more mediation layer between humans and machines, since the speech recognition translates the spoken words into text (a layer that does not exist when the user is directly typing or clicking buttons, for example). This became very clear when during the project development I moved from typed chat to spoken chat: there was much more misunderstanding when the user talks than when the user types.
+Besides the symbolic importance of the voice as a personal and embodied human asset, a voice interface is also a good reference to the illusion of the 'no-interface' (widely understood as non-visual). I call it an illusion because in fact not only it does not remove but actually it adds one more mediation layer between humans and machines, since the speech recognition translates the spoken words into text (a layer that does not exist when the user is directly typing or clicking buttons, for example). This became very clear when during the project development I moved from typed chat to spoken chat: there was much more misunderstanding when the user talked than when the user typed.
-==Eliza==
+==ELIZA==
-I saw in Eliza a good oportunity to make a humble tribute to Weizenbaum's 'Against the Imperialism of Intrumental Reason' (1976, Capter 10) and the essential difference between decision and choice. Also, I was curious to see whether a 50-year-old program involving (psychological) interaction between human and computer would still be up-to-date.
+I saw in Eliza a good oportunity to make a humble tribute to Weizenbaum's 'Against the Imperialism of Intrumental Reason' (Computer Power and Human Reason, 1976, Chapter 10) and the essential difference between decision and choice. Also, I was curious to see whether a 50-year-old program involving (psychological) interaction between human and computer would still be up-to-date.
 ==The market for code and emotions==
 There is a reasonably high number of similar products and services on the market as of now. They offer commercial or personal advice, simulate relationships, and in different ways intertwine code and emotions.
-I hereby assume a cynical position and portray the user as a pie chart – colorful, interesting and unique, but still a pie chart. By doing that, I believe to be adding a critical layer to practices like this.
+I hereby assume a cynical position and portray the user as a pie chart – colorful and unique, but still a pie chart. By doing that, I believe to be exercising 'playful critique' to practices like this.
 ==The pie chart==
 The graphic resulting from the conversation is composed of 6 colors – each one representing one personality attribute. The one closer to the center is based on the frequency in which the user says certain words and represents the degree of self-confidence. The other 5 colors are based on answers to yes-no questions, triggered during the conversation every time certain keywords are detected.
-These keywords were defined through free association by a group of friendly volunteers. They were presented one word (which was taken from a psychological profile questionaire and related to a certain personality attribute) and made the free association. For example: they were presented the word 'pacifists', which can be found in the questionaire relating to Social and Political Attitudes. Several connecctions were made to this word and they are all used to trigger questions that will evaluate Social and Political Attitudes during the conversation with the user.
+These keywords were defined through free association by a group of friendly volunteers. They were presented one word (which was taken from a psychological profile questionaire and related to a certain personality attribute) and made the free association. For example: they were presented the word 'pacifists', which can be found in the questionaire relating to Social and Political Attitudes. Several connections were made to this word and they are all used to trigger questions that will evaluate Social and Political Attitudes during the conversation with the user.
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