Category Archives: ~ Sci-Fi University

Sci-fi University Pilot

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How do you ensure that a complicated weapon can be fired by people hundreds or even thousands of years in the future?

Sci-fi University critically examines interfaces in sci-fi that illustrate core design concepts. In this six-minute pilot episode, Christopher discusses how the Ultimate Weapon Against Evil brilliantly and subtly embodies the design concepts of affordances and constraints.

This is a pilot, to see if folks like the format. So please leave your thoughts in the comments, and if enough folks dig it—and if I run across other interfaces that bear such explication—I’ll do more sometime in the future. If you’d like to view it at a larger size, check it out on YouTube. Happy viewing!

Sci-fi University Episode 2: Synecdoche & The Ghost in the Shell

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How can direct manipulation work on objects that are too large to be directly manipulated?

Sci-fi University critically examines interfaces in sci-fi that illustrate core design concepts. In this 3:30 minute episode, Christopher discusses how the interfaces of Ghost in the Shell introduces synecdoche to our gestural language.

If you know someone who likes anime, and is interested in natural user interfaces—especially gesture—please share this video with them.

Special ありがとう to Tom Parker for his editing.

Untold AI video

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What we think about AI largely depends on how we know AI, and most people “know” AI through science fiction. But how well do the AIs in these shows match up with the science? What kinds of stories are we telling ourselves about AI that are pure fiction? And more importantly, what stories _aren’t_ we telling ourselves that we should be? Hear Chris Noessel of scifiinterfaces.com talk about this study and rethink what you “know” about #AI.

You can see the entire Untold AI study at https://scifiinterfaces.com/tag/untold-ai/?order=asc

See the big overview poster of the project at https://scifiinterfaces.com/2018/07/10/untold-ai-poster/

Recorded for the MEDIA, ARTS AND DESIGN conference, 19 JUN 2020. https://www.mad-conferences.com #madai2020