aiqbench analysis
This research investigates how users can actively negotiate ontological boundaries when training personalized machine learning systems on self-defined phenomena. By utilizing open-ended probes and a Wizard of Oz technique, the study identifies critical sites where definitions of signal, noise, and subjectivity are shaped by user agency rather than just technical feasibility. This work offers essential design principles for mitigating the limitations imposed by pre-designed artifacts in personal sensing applications.
Negotiating Ontological Boundaries in User-Authored Personal Sensing Systems
Designed artifacts are ontological, shaping, and at times limiting, what becomes possible or imaginable. One path toward mitigating such foreclosures is giving people power over how systems are designed and built. Despite decades of scholarship around systems that enable such authorship, these systems are often evaluated on whether or not they are usable, useful, or technically feasible, leaving questions of ontological boundary negotiation, unexamined. We design two open-ended probes that utilize a Wizard of Oz technique to enable the experience of training a personalized machine learning…
Designed artifacts are ontological, shaping, and at times limiting, what becomes possible or imaginable. One path toward mitigating such foreclosures is giving people power over how systems are designed and built. Despite decades of scholarship around systems that enable such authorship, these systems are often evaluated on whether or not they are usable, useful, or technically feasible, leaving questions of ontological boundary negotiation, unexamined. We design two open-ended probes that utilize a Wizard of Oz technique to enable the experience of training a personalized machine learning system on phenomena people define themselves. In a week-long exploratory study, participants use one of two probes in the course of their everyday lives. We identify four sites where ontological boundaries were negotiated; the boundaries of a phenomena, the subject as part of relations, what is signal and what is noise, and the objectivity of data. We offer starting points for supporting boundary negotiation through design and discuss open-ended probes as a method for ontological design.
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This paper was accepted at the AI4TCI (Workshop on AI for Secure and Trustworthy Critical Infrastructure Systems) Workshop at the International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES) 2026.
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Full text under the publisher's open licence · 285 words
