Sarah Rüller

This paper explores the emotional, ethical and practical dimensions of integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into personal and professional workflows, focusing on the concept of feeling guilty as a ‘c(ai)borg’ - a human augmented by AI. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s Cyborg Manifesto, the study explores how AI challenges traditional notions of creativity, originality and intellectual labour. Using an autoethnographic approach, the authors reflect on their year-long experiences with AI tools, revealing a transition from initial guilt and reluctance to empowerment through skill-building and transparency. Key findings highlight the importance of basic academic skills, advanced AI literacy and honest engagement with AI results. The c(ai)borg vision advocates for a future where AI is openly embraced as a collaborative partner, fostering innovation and equity while addressing issues of access and agency. By reframing guilt as growth, the paper calls for a thoughtful and inclusive approach to AI integration.

Social media platforms have become a double-edged sword for human rights activism, simultaneously offering a stage and facilitating wide-reaching communication and connection, while also imposing censorship through stringent and opaque content governance. This study focuses on the over enforcement of content moderation on social media platforms, affecting activists who tried to engage online publics with issues of forced evictions and displacements in Sheikh Jarrah (SJ) and Silwan, in occupied East Jerusalem in May 2021 --- a critical juncture in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. By analyzing responses from a survey of 201 users who reported experiencing censorship, and interviews with 14 political influencers and activists, we uncover how these individuals navigate the intricate landscape of social media censorship. The findings reveal a continuum of different ways of responding to censorship, from self-censorship to proactive advocacy of policy change, that highlight the ingenuity activists can employ to bypass content restrictions. This research not only contributes to our understanding of the interaction between social media's technical affordances and activist responses but also discusses broader implications for the design and governance of digital platforms in supporting democratic discourse and human rights activism in conflict zones. This study enriches the ongoing dialogue about social media's dual role as both a facilitator and a controller of public discourse, emphasizing the need for platforms to consider the profound impacts of their technical and policy decisions on global activism.

This extrapolation explores the evolution of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) and envisions its future integration with artificial intelligence (AI). As we transition from traditional organizational systems to sophisticated digital ecosystems, the concept of a ’second brain’ has emerged, exemplified by tools like Evernote and Notion. However, the integration of AI promises to transform this concept into an active personal companion. This AI-driven system would access multiple data streams, creating a rich, interconnected knowledge base that offers personalized insights and decision support. The paper discusses the potential design of such an AI companion. Unlike current tools that excel at organizing information, this AI companion would actively engage with data from various aspects of a user’s life, creating a dynamic, personalized knowledge overview. While the potential benefits are significant, the paper also addresses critical considerations, including privacy concerns, ethical implications, skill requirements for effective use, and the need to balance human intuition with machine intelligence. The discussion emphasizes the importance of maintaining user autonomy and critical thinking skills while leveraging AI capabilities. As we enter "The Intelligence Age," this extrapolation provides a foundation for further research and discussion on the responsible development and implementation of AI companions as advanced cognitive tools, aiming to augment human intelligence rather than replace it.

This special interest group invites participants to critically examine the complex interplay between interventionist Information and Communication Technology (ICT) projects and (historical) contexts of conflict and colonialism. It aims to open conversations on the multitude of challenges, barriers, and lessons learned around South-North collaborations, particularly in contexts with a colonial past and present, including researchers and research participants safety, data "security", applied ethics, and methodologies. This SIG aims at jointly developing ideas on how we, as academic researchers, can navigate and reframe the power dynamics inherent in global South-North collaborations.

At a time when Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming human life, it is crucial to ensure that its development is consistent with ethical standards and humanistic values. This paper aims to initiate a dialogue on the adoption of a pluralistic design approach to AI, called the PlurAIverse. Inspired by Arturo Escobar’s ’Designs for the Pluriverse’, this work proposes design principles that emphasise inclusivity, cultural sensitivity and social justice in AI development, and calls for a more equitable approach to AI governance that balances technological progress with broader societal welfare. The paper highlights the current dominance of large technology corporations in the AI landscape, driven by profit motives that are often at odds with ethical considerations and the diverse needs of global communities. This work does not claim to provide definitive answers, but aims to facilitate a collective effort to create momentum that emphasises the importance of incorporating diverse design approaches into AI development. In doing so, we can counter the dominant tech-centric narratives and ensure that AI technologies reflect and respect the pluralistic nature of our global society. The ultimate goal is to promote AI systems that are technologically advanced, ethically sound and socially inclusive, marking a significant shift towards a more just and humane technological future.

Participatory design in digital civics aims to foster mutual learning and co-creation between public services and citizens. However, rarely do we collectively explore the challenges and failures we experience within PD and digital civics, to enable us to grow as a community. This workshop explores real-world experiences that had to adapt to unforeseen circumstances. Through case presentations and thematic group discussions, participants will reflect on how failure is defined and for whom, the challenges faced, causes that led to these challenges, and work collaboratively to develop effective solutions. Furthermore, we aim to discuss the well-being impact on researchers and communities when faced with these obstacles, the strategies participants use to overcome them, and how these insights can be fed back into the digital civics community. By fostering reflection amid diverse perspectives, with an emphasis on how the HCI community might learn from varying definitions of failure, the workshop seeks to promote dialogue and collective learning. This approach is intended to offer participants valuable insights for navigating complexities more effectively and fostering resilient design practices in digital civics.

Participatory design initiatives, especially within the realm of digital civics, are often integrated and co-developed with the very citizens and communities they intend to assist. Digital civics research aims to create positive social change using a variety of digital technologies. These research projects commonly adopt various embedded processes, such as commissioning models [6]. Despite the adoption of this process within a range of domains, there isn’t currently a framework for best practices and accountability procedures to ensure we engage with citizens ethically and ensure the sustainability of our projects. This workshop aims to provide a space to start collaboratively constructing a dynamic framework of best practices, laying the groundwork for the future of sustainable embedded research processes. The overarching goal is to foster discussions and share insights that contribute to developing effective practices, ensuring the longevity and impact of participatory digital civics projects.