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Abstract Agency is a central value within museums and science centers, but it has not been defined and operationalized in ways that can guide museum practice or support inclusion for new audiences. In this project, an interdepartmental group of science center staff co‐created a conceptual framework for noticing and supporting visitors' agency. The framework includes four interconnected aspects of agency: physical environment, social engagement, choice and autonomy, and relevance and empowerment. Conceptualizing agency as multifaceted led to more expansive approaches for supporting it, allowing staff to move beyond open‐endedness to consider a wider range of supports and structures that can make museum experiences more inviting and inclusive. The framework informed the development of practical tools for use by exhibit/program developers and facilitators. Tools are freely available and guide museum staff in questioning current practices and integrating the four facets of agency into planning, prototyping, and observation of interactive experiences.
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Artificial Intelligence and Video Game Creation: A Framework for the New Logic of Autonomous Design
Autonomous, intelligent tools are reshaping all sorts of work practices, including innovative design work. These tools generate outcomes with little or no user intervention and produce designs of unprecedented complexity and originality, ushering profound changes to how organizations will design and innovate in future. In this paper, we formulate conceptual foundations to analyze the impact of autonomous design tools on design work. We proceed in two steps. First, we conceptualize autonomous design tools as ‘rational’ agents which will participate in the design process. We show that such agency can be realized through two separate approaches of information processing: symbolic and connectionist. Second, we adopt control theory to unpack the relationships between the autonomous design tools, human actors involved in the design, and the environment in which the tools operate. The proposed conceptual framework lays a foundation for studying the new kind of material agency of autonomous design tools in organizational contexts. We illustrate the analytical value of the proposed framework by drawing on two examples from the development of Ubisoft’s Ghost Recon Wildlands video game, which relied on such tools. We conclude this essay by constructing a tentative research agenda for the research into autonomous design tools and design work.
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- PAR ID:
- 10298086
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Digital Social Research
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2003-1998
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.33621/jdsr.v2i3.46
