I wrote a provocation, which is meant to provoke you, for the ACM Designing Interactive Systems #DIS2020 conference in Eindhoven, this July. Here's a short thread on what I am 'provoking'

[thread]

Ps: Here's the preprint download:
http://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05019 

I start by acknowledging the value of "post-human" thinking, to overcome the traditional Humanist 'domination of everything else' model of human being. Given the
global challenges it seems long due we
reconsider our proper place on planet earth./1

But I see a risk when AI and posthuman get together in design. Post-human design will not prevent, and may even
obscure, the fact that AI technology imports a
traditional, humanist form of logic, which then influences how we design ‘smart’ or ‘intelligent’ objects./2

My position is: Smart objects remain things that
humans think with’, not: ‘thinking things’. /3

The idea that objects can have
a life of their own, ‘autonomously’ sensing and
cooperate with humans, is false. It can be a useful design metaphor, but be aware it is essentially a *humanist* conception *of humans* that we are simulating in a machine. A double error, so to say./4

An enactive embodied account of human being would in fact allow to throw away a lot of unwanted Humanist bathwater, while still retaining a human – that is, an embodied, situated and ecologically sustainable human - baby. /4

Designing robots as 'other thinking agents' may seem harmless (and fun) but it can actually be ethically problematic. Thus we may be tempted to see
Roomba the vacuumcleaner as a rudimentary “Sophia”
– the famous humanoid, a thinking social agent,
some-one (not some-thing)/5

Instead, Roomba is really a sensorial extension of humans: Mind you, not of the household members, but of data scientists in commercial companies that gather data from consumers. Roomba is not R2D2, but James
Bond’s spy-camera in his ballpoint pen./6

See https://twitter.com/Abebab/status/1217800297818546176?s=20

My position could be a cautious, critical form of post-humanism: Don't humanize robots.

Or, a ‘Humanism 2.0’: Design
concerns are still human concerns, even if
being human means: a fully embodied and situated being, living in harmony with the larger ecosystem called earth. /7