In addition to your weekly reading response, please add 1-2 questions per reading on this document before our class meeting time on Monday! Questions can be specific or open ended, but try to avoid repeating other questions on the document.
What do you think is more impactful, physical or conceptual points of intervention?
Is there some way to find the source of assumptions and tackle that? Tied with the broader access to media/media production nowadays.
With media becoming a major platform for social change, how might one approach conceptual points of intervention vs physical?
Can there be longterm change without changes in points of assumption?
What point of intervention have we seen to be the most effective in spurring change throughout history?
Are there certain situations where different points of intervention are better suited? If so, what are examples of cases we should focus on said point?
How effective is the point of assumption tactic when you have people who believe in an idea so zealously and with great certainty?
“The problem would not inspire so much criticism except that it is both very popular and the creators do not appear to be listening to earnest concerns of the problems and perils of their project.” Why do you think the creators are not listening to the opinions of researchers from relevant fields?
What is an effective way to prevent people from using plastics?
Why are the advice/knowledge of experts dismissed by creators and even the general public?(it seems a lot of people are in support of the array, but don’t have much knowledge about the implications).
How can we get people to be more knowledgable of all aspects of an issue like plastic in the oceans?(rather than in this case where people just agreed with the project because it sounded good initially)
How aware are designers of these unsuccessful attempts at doing good? How do they cope with, learn from, and improve on their own experiences? Or are people just doomed to keep making similar mistakes?
Instead of tackling the problem at the destruction point of intervention, what other point of intervention would be the most effective to use as a medium for solving this environmental issue?
Are the designers aware of the faults of this design and feel that it’s purpose still outweighs the consequences or do they merely ignore the faults to do its good intention?
how connected are the fields of psychology and AI?
How can an AI learn or understand emotion when it is subjective? Should AI have emotion? + What is the purpose of AI? Is it to make us think less? Does it allow us to think more because it focuses on the mundane? ++++
What would someone that went from the social sciences world into the AI world say?
is it too late to change the course of AI?
What are the complications of AI(since the paper talks about reforming AI)?
How can we be more critical for critical design?
What can we do to better educate the oppressed class about the topic of reification?
Are critical and affirmative design always in opposition?
I think this is really nuanced because critical design is all about unearthing what we have already affirmed in society – but what happens is that within critical design… it’s all about turning our values on their heads and creating something that might not even have a“real” purpose…
Why is critical design so controversial?++++
What are some“what if’s” that are hard to imagine?
To answer the pdf, what is critical about critical design(in your interpretation)?
Week 9
Reinsborough, Canning: Points of Intervention
Baumer, Silberman: When the implication is not to design (technology)
Liboiron: How the Ocean Cleanup Array Fundamentally Misunderstands Marine Plastics
Week 8
Agre et. al: Toward a Critical Technical Practice: Lessons Learned in Trying to Reform AI
How can an AI learn or understand emotion when it is subjective? Should AI have emotion? + What is the purpose of AI? Is it to make us think less? Does it allow us to think more because it focuses on the mundane? ++++
Bardzell et. al: What is ‘critical’ about critical design? (see attached PDF!)
Why is critical design so controversial? ++++
Flood, Catherine & Gavin Grindon: Disobedient Objects