Can we define and foster a healthy relationship between people, the internet and things through the ethos of craft? (Panel Discussion)

The focus of this panel will be to discuss how we might use the characteristics found in the practices and ethos of craft to speculate on an alternative ‘healthier’ vision of the Internet of Things (IoT), and the internet more broadly, including the role in of machine learning (AI) in how our data is collected and processed.

The forms, infrastructures and underlying big tech business models that underpin digital connectedness (i.e. the internet) are being increasingly questioned for their ‘unhealthy’ impact on people and the planet. Whether this is the ever-increasing recognition of how the design of social media platforms have privileged web traffic, and so advertising revenue, over the wellbeing of users (esp. young people)- the appreciation of how personal data is being collected and traded in very opaque ways, the extraction and monetisation of personal creative content (IP) by AI platform developers - calculate the full costs and environmental impact of global ‘cloud’ based infinite data storage – or beginning to recognise the enormous abouts of energy (and other natural resources) needed to develop generative AI systems. More generally, issues of security, trust, transparency, legibility, reciprocity, and ownership of data are becoming more pressing in both domestic and public contexts, and some would argue that the dominant approach to the IoT, and an increasingly AI augmented internet in general, is not delivering on the early promise of an open, equitable and sustainable internet where anyone can prosper.

We are proposing that using the craft-oriented concepts and values sited below as a lens allows for alternative imaginings and propositions of what digital connectedness could look and feel like.

Subjectivity -favouring the qualitative experience over quantitative functionality.

Personalisation/Bespokeness - aiming at the particular, rather than the general.

Localism - focusing on the locally attuned, not global ubiquity.

Embodiment - the significance of our somatic/physical/bodily experiences.

Provenance - recognising the value of knowing where things come from.

Authenticity - valuing ‘honesty’ in terms of both material expression and explicit function.

Care - expressed as both careful skilled making and a broader careful approach.

Drawing on the panels varying areas of expertise and experiences we will also reflect on how the use of AI (generative and otherwise) aligns, or misaligns, with the value offers within design and craft practices. E.g. In what ways does/could AI generated content find its way into the material manifestations of craft (as distinct from industrial design), and how does this impact notions of authenticity, provenance and embodiment?

Panelists

Dr Justin Marshall, Professor of Craft and Digital Making, Northumbria University.

Martin Skelly, Reader in Product Design and Creative Technologies, University of Dundee.

Dr Jayn Verkerk, Research Associate on the hiCraft project, Northumbria University.