Artificial Intelligence Must Become Personal Intelligence

The rise of artificial intelligence raises the central question of our society: Will the robots eventually take power?

Artificial intelligence has long become a part of our everyday lives: In California autonomous vehicles have already caused the first fatalities. Google Duplex combines restaurant reservations and hairdresser’s appointments so convincingly that AI has to identify itself as a machine. Voice assistants such as Alexa, Echo, and Google Home are used in their millions. And even spam filters are based on AI – and that for decades. Many threatening scenarios are unsettling people, for example autonomous drones which can locate people per facial recognition and then kill them fully automatically, without a human CIA agent in Langley checking the machine’s decision again. The Californian ideology is going in this direction: Many CEOs in Silicon Valley are convinced that machines will make better decisions than humans.

Will artificial intelligence serve us or dominate use?

This is also a question of design. The answer to this question will determine whether artificial intelligence will establish itself within society or whether it will confront people’s collective resistance. That is why the discussion of new technologies cannot be restricted to technical issues. It is also a political and cultural debate on the question of how we humans want to live and work in the future. With digitalization and artificial intelligence, technologies penetrate all areas of life. A man-machine continuum is being created which has been addressed for decades in romantic-critical cyborg visions, above all in literature and Hollywood. The fusing of work and life plays a central role in this.

German industry has already mastered this fusing of the physical and digital worlds very well. The keyword here is Industry 4.0.

Yes, our industry has developed digital twins of airplanes, ships, and large industrial facilities which provide a complete digital representation of all components and procedures. This assists in the monitoring of detailed processes, the analysis of defects, and the identification of wear and tear, because everything that a physical object experiences can be understood digitally. The digital twin is not a new invention. The concept goes back to the early days of space flight when NASA had an exact copy of every space capsule in mission control in Houston in order to simulate each procedure carried out in space on earth. When computer capacity reached a critical mass, these analog simulation models migrated to the digital world. In new production processes the digital twin enables the mass customization of an effectively infinite variety of designs, without having to stop the production line once.

This sounds like a good industrial strategy.

Yes, it is, today we talk about the Internet of Things and the Internet of Services. But where is the Internet of Users? I ask myself why we are so good at creating digital representations of machines, but have not developed a genuine digital twin for humans. A digital twin that represents people in their totality, with the entire biography of their social, cultural, political, and economic interactions. Silicon Valley already has digital twins of millions of citizens. However these digital twins are dark twins. They only replicate part of the person as they are only interested in their preferences as consumers. Facebook, Amazon, and Google only use artificial intelligence in order to sell the gigantic data sets for advertising purposes. What all the companies have in common – like the intelligence services – is that they collect and analyze their data in the dark. Imagine if you were to meet your own dark twin on the Internet in person: You wouldn’t recognize yourself. Your face would be an ugly grimace, a horrifying image of your very own digital Dorian Grey.

»Bring our dark twins from out of the shadows!«

That obviously frightens off a lot of people.

The growing unease in the population at the meteoric rise of machine learning and artificial intelligence is also due to the fact that they are not agents of this fascinating technology but passive objects which are relentlessly scanned, evaluated, and computed. This explains the popularity of the dystopian fantasies of Hollywood films on the one side and the sharp critique of the uncontrolled use of artificial intelligence, for example that of Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, on the other. Consequently, the demand should be raised: Bring our dark twins from out of the shadows! Citizens worldwide want to regain control of their data. Following the latest scandal around Cambridge Analytica there are now clear majorities on the issues of data security and data protection. People, who are always simultaneously consumers and customers, are claiming back their data in order to regain their sovereignty as consumers. They rightly suspect that in the hands of artificial intelligence they are just binary material to be exploited, and not the sovereign consumer and citizen which the market economy and democracy repeatedly proclaims in vociferous tones.

How can we change this?


Considering that we as designers must make great efforts to reconcile people with machines if we want to organize social acceptance for these technological attainments. This is only possible if we change our priorities. It is not about lending machines a harmless appearance as designers by simply painting a pretty face on robots which then looks at us with child-like eyes. We must finally create transparency with respect to the effects of these technologies on society and implement this through an open organization of our environment. People must not be made into the passive objects of the rapid economic and social changes resulting from digitalization. Instead they should be empowered to become the self-determined protagonists of the intelligent application and smart usage of these wonderful technologies.

So overall, would you say you are optimistic?

Artificial intelligence can form the basis for a new, different life. In order to achieve this industry must finally think in a radical fashion from the human perspective. And not simply purchase or develop technology which they then confront the user with. It is about no less than the humanization of technology. Artificial intelligence needs to be civilized! In order to humanize artificial intelligence it must be made accessible to people, easy to learn, apply, and shape. The technology must be designed for people so that it is perceived as tolerant, patient, warm-hearted, and empathetic. In short: Artificial intelligence must be domesticated in order for people to completely trust it. One could object that the demand for the domestication of machines is formulated too simplistically. However, it must be clear: The dog mustn’t bite the owner, otherwise the plug will be pulled. Over millennia man has learned that he subjugates the world, not the other way round. And throughout his long history of technology, man’s inventions have always been an extension of his own body and his own skills. At the end of every technological development there was always a tool which leveraged his power and provided intelligent solutions to his everyday problems. Therefore technology, if it wants to be successful on the market in the long-term, must once again consider people.

»Artificial intelligence must be domesticated in order for people to completely trust it.«

You want to achieve a personalization of artificial intelligence?

The electronic mainframe computer left its wall cabinet and became the personal computer (PC), and now it is carried around in almost every trouser pocket across the globe as the smartphone. As a result it has effectively become a private and personal tool for millions of individuals. According to this model, artificial intelligence must become personal intelligence. From AI to PI. To a tool for everyman. To a technology which allows every individual to be a sovereign actor and user who immediately profits from the technical progress. And this is ultimately where the designer comes into play. The humanization of technology has always been the designer’s core task. Designers understand people’s fears, desires, and needs. As the customer’s attorney, the designer brings the necessary empathy to our industry. Consequently, the design discipline must face up to its greatest responsibility: the civilization of artificial intelligence. Designers have always intensively observed, researched, and analyzed people and the context of their applications. Designers shape people’s intuitive relationship to their objects and their own digital interaction interfaces. And thus the designer becomes a mediator between technology and lifeworld. We have a large box of tools at our disposal which enable us to radically adopt the perspective of users and people. Consequently, the formula should read: PI = AI + UX. Personal Intelligence = Artificial Intelligence + User Experience.