Interaction and Resistance: The Recognition of Intentions in New Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

Just as AI has moved away from classical AI, human-computer interaction (HCI) must move away from what I call ‘good old fashioned HCI’ to ‘new HCI’ – it must become a part of cognitive systems research where HCI is one case of the interaction of intelligent agents (we now know that interaction is essential for intelligent agents anyway). For such interaction, we cannot just ‘analyze the data’, but we must assume intentions in the other, and I suggest these are largely recognized through resistance to carrying out one’s own intentions. This does not require fully cognitive agents but can start at a very basic level. New HCI integrates into cognitive systems research and designs intentional systems that provide resistance to the human agent.

Nota Bene: Before we begin, a word of caution is in order: While I am very grateful for the invitation to address an audience on human-computer interaction, this paper is a case of the blind talking about color. In the best case it can provide some theoretical ideas that might be an inspiration for future work in HCI; namely theoretical ideas from a perspective of theoretical work on artificial cognitive systems. I am grateful to the audience at the Caserta summer school on “Autonomous, Adaptive, and Context-Aware Multimodal Interfaces” (March 2010) for its encouraging response to my programmatic remarks.