As part of her seminar Human-Computer Partnerships at the Collège de France, Professor Wendy Mackay invited Atau Tanaka to about his work and views on human-computer interaction in music creation.
Prof. Mackay introduced the day by positioning artificial intelligence in human computer partnerships. She emphasized her user-centered perspective, in which many aspects of implementation (e.g. details about the model or its performance) are generally not of much interest to the user. Rather, the usability and intuitive nature of the interface is most important, which might even include purposeful limitations placed on the AI. She gave many cautionary tales and remarks about our relationship with intelligent computer interfaces, and presented biology as a metaphor in which some relationships are symbiotic, while others are adversarial in the long term, with Facebook’s effect on psychology and politics as one example (although it was later remarked that those computer interfaces are owned and directed by humans). From her background in cognitive psychology, and her seminal work in (flight) control rooms, she showed that the manner in which algorithms are first presented, and subsequently used, can make all the difference between us relegating control and losing skills, or using them as a beneficial, auxiliary tool that improves our flexibility rather than creates dependance. One example would be our increased dependance on turn-by-turn navigational systems, which have been shown to reduce our own spatial navigation abilities, a fact that A.I. expert and the following speaker, Prof. Krüger, wholeheartedly agreed with.
Atau started his presentation by explaining the special position of music in Human-Computer-Interaction (HCI). He emphasized that music goes beyond sound and is ‘supersonic’: Music making not only involves creative musical activities, but is performative (in many ways), involves listening, social interactions as well as multisensory interactions and experiences, perhaps better captured by “musicking“. He then introduced the evolution of HCI over the years, and how music might relate to ‘three waves of HCI’. As an example of user-centered design and the multisensory aspect of music, he introduced his development of the Haptic Wave – a human-computer interface that allows the visually impaired to compose and edit sound via a tactile feedback. Atau closed his presentation with a view towards the future, in particular the BBDMI as an HCI music project that will include both EEG and EMG, and that will go through similar user-centered development cycles.
