Cara Wilson

This chapter investigates methods for bridging the divide between current Artificial Intelligence (AI) imaginaries and future ones, drawing on a research project that worked with young people to explore futures for ‘Responsible AI’ (RAI) principles of explainability, fairness, and privacy in three secondary schools in Scotland and England, using speculative and participatory methods. The chapter explores a disconnect between how young people perceived Generative AI (GenAI) and how they described education and schools. Despite expressing critical perspectives about GenAI, young people generally did not apply these perspectives to critique or reimagine schools or schooling in a current or future age of pervasive AI in Education (AIED). Instead, their orientation to AIED futures was one of conserving and preserving education, protecting what they saw as its foundational qualities – hard work, trustworthiness, and detachment from the extractive, datafied world. The chapter explores the need to tread carefully when attempting to mobilise young people's voices around RAI in education.

Children’s encounters with money are increasingly shaped by cashless, platform-based, and gaming systems, however limited HCI research examines how children experience and negotiate these changes. This paper presents preliminary findings from a mixed-method, participatory design futuring study with children aged 10–11 in a UK primary school, a key stage when children typically shift from cash to digital money, and experience growing financial autonomy. Conducted over a period of 5 weeks, the study involved surveys, workshops, focus groups, and interviews, exploring children’s experiences of multiple economies and visions for future financial systems. Initial findings show that children actively navigate cash, digital money, and in-game currencies, valuing visibility, safety, and control, while expressing concerns about scams and financial harm, particularly in games. Through speculative ‘super-inventions,’ children’s work revealed tensions between protection and autonomy, highlighting opportunities for designing financial technologies that would better support and educate children during this critical transition.

Background: Assistive technologies (ATs) are used increasingly in community settings to assist in the care of older adults. Despite a rapid increase in the capabilities and uptake of these technologies, gaps remain in understanding the main barriers to their usage. Objective: This systematic review investigated the barriers and facilitators to the use of AT in the care of older adults. Methods: Six electronic databases were searched from January 2011 to March 2024. Primary studies were included if they used qualitative methods reporting findings related to barriers or facilitators to the implementation of AT (eg, ambient and wearable sensors, alarms, telehealth or mobile health [mHealth]) for older adults (from the perspective of either carers or older adults) in community settings. All data were screened independently by two reviewers. Study quality was assessed using the Critical Appraisal Skills Program (CASP). Data from each included study were synthesized using thematic synthesis, before barriers were mapped against the domains of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Results: Ninety-five studies were included in the review. The number of studies published in the field of barriers to AT use has increased 3-fold post-COVID-19 in comparison to the previous decade. Ten barriers—privacy, cost, insufficient knowledge, fear of misuse, usability, poor functionality, perceived lack of need, stigma, and lack of human interaction—were identified, as well as three facilitators—awareness of health benefits, targeted training, and user-centered design. Persistent barriers relating to all domains of the TAM were identified, with the majority of these relating to the “behavioral intention to use” domain (cost, privacy, stigma, and fear of misuse). The majority of studies had a moderate/high risk of bias. Conclusions: There remain distinct barriers to sustained usage of AT for the care of older adults, particularly concerning adoption as defined by the TAM. Further studies investigating the acceptability of ATs are needed to increase the understanding of optimization strategies.

Amidst a growing body of work in HCI focusing on designing systems that engage with care relationships, there is increasing interest in expanding notions of care beyond transactional practices, towards broader notions of “care ecologies”. However, how can we support care systems designers to apply these concepts in practice? This paper presents the Care Spectrums, a set of sensitising concepts for designers to explore and apply to their practice. Developed as a response to a design probe exercise (the CareTree) which was carried out with 14 participants over one month, the Care Spectrums respond to the multiplicity of expressions of care in participants’ everyday lives. Translated into a design resource (the ‘Co-Designing with Care’ card deck), and trialled with 10 designers, the Care Spectrums revealed hidden caring and uncaring practices in designers’ projects, and stimulated opportunities for designing with and for people's complex and entangled care ecologies.