CBL project 3 – artifice

Within “CBL project 3”, together with 2 other students, I explored how artificial intelligence (AI) can influence ecological responsibility in urban planning by acting as a mediator between urban authorities and ecosystems. The project responds to growing environmental crises and urban planning processes being too human-centered. The research project follows a Transformative Reflective Design Process, combining literature review, speculative design, prototyping, and expert interviews.

My most developed expertise area this project was User & Society. As the urban planning process involves many users and stakeholders, creation of personas was needed for all of the different stakeholders. The key part of our research, the workshops where we used focus groups to test our research, gave me valuable insights in how people act and react and it was very interesting to observe and analyse them. Within the project I developed my understanding of Artificial intelligence and its societal impacts, contributing to my development in Technology and Realization. Rather than treating AI as just a tool, I began to see it as a stakeholder with influence on human decisions. Also from testing non-human personas generated by AI and humans, we found out that people cannot tell the difference. As our research design process involved many theoretical framing, I developed my academic analysis skills, and with the writing of the report I also developed my academic writing and research paper writing skills.

Throughout this project, I improved my presenting skills, learning how to prepare and actively practicing in front of others really enhanced my confidence. Although this project did unfortunately not involve as much tangible and physical design, the design of the final demoday experience gave me insight into how a planned experience can tell a complex story.