Artificial intelligence, big part of HCI, has older origins that most of people think. Beginnings of artificial intelligence we can see in popular movie "The Imitation Game" about Allan Turing's life. While trying to crack the German Enigma code he used alogorithms that we might consider beginnings of Ai.

Artificial intelligence has also seen its rise in mainstream. During last couple years we have seen premiers of movies like: "Her", "ExMachina" or series "Black Mirror".

The Homeostasis Model

In the class we were explaining The Homeostasis Model using example of iRobot Roomba, an automatic vacuum cleaner. Homeostasis is being used by any living creature, but it has been applied to robots and artificial intelligence.

Assignment

For our assignment we were asked to apply Homeostasis model to one of these devices:

• A bicycle
• A printer
• An automatic sliding door
• An Easy Order automatic ordering machine at McDonalds

Homeostasis model with printer

For homeostasis model of printer I have been thinking what are the basics needs of printer, so what printer actually needs to perform its basic functions. I came to such four needs of printer:

• ink
• paper
• power
• other devices/tasks

Ink is the most basic need of printer. It is only influenced by stimulus from outside. As you can seen on the image above I also put "other devises/tasks" as need of the printer. Printer needs regular usage and being connected to other devices. If it's not used on regular basis some elements might not work properly. On the other hand if printer is not connected to any device it does not have any purpose, as it's only goal is printing.

Every printing task, means decline in ink. When printer has high level of ink it does not really mind tasks. It means she's happy because she has ink and what to do, so it is able to perform it's basics functions.

On the other hand when printer is low on ink, but still has tasks she might feel angry: "I cannot perform these tasks because I do not have ink". As an effect she might give communicate to human: "give me more ink"

Paper is very similar to ink. Printer needs paper to print. To regulate the level of paper printer gives communicates to human: "Please give me more paper". So when printer is low on paper she might also feel angry at human.

Being low on ink and paper AND having tasks to do is really annoying for printer. She feels super angry at human and gives him lots of communicates to refill ink and paper.

If printer is not connected to any device she might get psychological. Why am I turned on? What's my purpose? As result she will probably go into battery save mode and wait for new tasks.

I did not mention power which is a must for printer. If printer is not connected to power she feels like she's dead and all other needs don't really matter.

Research

In my research I wanted to see how Ai or Artificial Creatures can influence design and what UX designers do in general. In last years we saw lots of new AI designing tools on the market. From very interesting examples it is worth checking companies like:

• The Grid CMS
• WIx Advanaced Design Intellligence
• Firedrop
• Brand Mark

Obviously there is more of Algorithm-Driven Design tools and softwares but these really caught my eye. The example I want to go more in depth with, is one from Airbnb that I heard about some time ago. Before I tell anything more check this video!

As you can see on the video designer is drawing wireframes on the right side of the screen, and on the left side wireframe is already being transformed into the design. In fact, what you see on the left is actual code that is ready to go live!

When we talk about brands like Airbnb, Booking, Skyscanner, we need to have in mind that they are creating so called design systems which includes hundreds of different components with different layouts, typography, sizes etc. For designer it is extremely hard to stick to brand guidelines while design system is so big.

What Airbnb is trying to do, is skipping all the phases and going directly from wireframing to coding and launching. They have builded prototype that uses machine learning algorithms which can distinguish different elements, and in fact, design fully working product.

In my opinion this project is relevant to Artificial Creatures, as it also expects from software (so only piece of code) logical and creative thinking. With time we should see this specific software making better decisions and learning on its own mistakes, same as we can see in Artificial Creatures.

Creator of this project is Benjamin Wilkins (@thatbenlifetho), Design Technologist at Airbnb. Check article and movie from him!

Reflection

I did not know that much of artificial creatures and the topic in general before we started this classes. It turned out to be really interesting one. Actually I got so curious about homeostasis model that I bought myself an iRobot Roomba to research on its actions. Moreover I really enjoyed this little details provided by Chris during class about movies or algorithms used in Lion King.