keynote at Irish HCI, Limerick, 2nd Nov 2018 http://alandix.com/academic/talks/IHCI-deep-digitality-2018/ We constantly hear about disruptive technology, but how radical is the change due to digital technology? In the hills and mountains of the South Wales coal valleys, rivers radiate out and then south toward the sea. This seems reasonable until you learn that the geology beneath is a syncline a basin-shaped structure of rock strata. The current rivers form a superimposed drainage pattern, the routes the rivers ran before the geology changed. As the ground rose and sank below, the rivers maintained their old courses, a relic of a one hundred million year past. In reality digital technology is often like this, largely reinforcing the existing structures of power and organisation in government, commerce and health. The digital geology is changing beneath our feet and yet digital technology cuts the same paths. Can we reimagine industry and civic society if digital technology had come first, before the industrial revolution and maybe even before the rise of the mercantile class?

1. Deep Digitality
Alan Dix
http://alandix.com/deepdigitality/
@alanjohndix @CompFoundry

2. Tiree
Tiree Tech Wave
… watch this space …
Computational Foundry
Swansea University

3. the foundry
building
mission
community

4. computational foundry
opportunities
ECR programme
• emerging research leaders in the UK
• now in third year
escalator funds
• Swansea academic (not nec. computing)
• non-Swansea academic
• non-academic partner (industry, community, gov.)

6. today I am not talking about …
• physicality and product design
• the long tail of small data
• IT for small communities
• walking round Wales
• REF
• now
• digital light
• digital humanities
• creativity and Bad Ideas
• virtual crackers and slow time
• modeling dreams, regret and the emergence of self

7. it is about change and challenge
arcs of computation
broadening conceptions
deep digitality
reimagining the world

9. arcs of computation
how many?
who?
what for?
for all?

10. how many computers?
1950s
– Thomas Watson misquote – five is enough!
1975
– One PC for every 100,000 people
now
– 2 billion PCs, 2 billion smartphones
– 10s or 100s of microprocessors per person

11. lots of lights …
http:/www.hcibook.com/alan/projects/firefly/

12. who are the users?
early days
– programmers
– data entry – low paid
1980s
– office and professional
– higher paid => HCI !
now
– everyone => experience
– really everyone?

13. a growing divide?

14. what for?
purpose choice
1980s work employer-determined
2000s home and leisure self-determined
Now structure of life socially-determined
NO choice
essential to citizenship

15. for all …
each person – individual
data
– health and well–being
– privacy and bias
code
– maker-culture, IoT configuration
– HCI as lifestyle TV?
H = Human

16. for all …
everyone – community and society
really everyone?
– designing for the margins
– Tiree Tech Wave
HCI … and beyond
– conscience of computing
– understand large-scale socio-technical design
H = Humanity

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deep digitality
look to the hills
the nature of money
radical imagining

19. The drainage pattern is thus superimposed and,
apart from the major structural disturbances of
the Neath and Tawe, the river system does not
relate to the underlying geology.
D. Leighton (1998) Mynydd Du and Fforest Fawr: Evolution
of an Upland Landscape in South Wales

20. the digital geology
is shifting beneath our feet
…but our social and industrial topography
remains rooted in the physical and
organisational constraints of the 19th century

21. abracadabra
what if?
silicon revolution
before the steel revolution?
digital technology
before the Medicis

22. money made the
world go round

23. changing role of money
not just bitcoin!
two roles of money:
value
information

24. diversity density
kitchen
cupboard
high diversity
density

25. diversity density
supermarket
shelf
lower diversity
density

26. traditional markets
producer
factory
warehouse
lorry
supermarket
consumer
diversity
density
information volume

27. internet market
producer
factory
warehouse
lorry
supermarket
consumer
information volume

28. radical reimaginings

29. health
medical vs care-giving – siloed professions
why?
intrinsic
skills and abilities
accidental:
physical constraints of the hospital building
knowledge and information

30. shoes of different sizes
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Shoes,_pair_(black)_(AM_1978.53-2).jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Many_Victoria_Shoe_Boxes.jpg

31. the printed washing machine
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Washing_Machine_Beko.jpg
photos: Jacqui Bennett

32. fashion
http://nattyjanesews.blogspot.com/2012/02/nattyjanes-dress-variation-part-1.html
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sewing_department_in_Hungary.jpg

33. facing reality

34. business models, legal issues
where
we are
UI challenges
societal issues
where we
could be
paths of change
not all
good!

36. in summary
change
– IT essential for citizenary
– technology needs to be for all
deep digitality
– money is different
– digital geology has shifted
– radical transformation is possible

37. what will happen
what could happen
you and me