Can the Things That Make Us Smart Outsmart Us?

Abstract Taking its cue from Don Norman’s Things That Make Us Smart, this chapter discusses trends in the anticipatory functionality of technology: the ways in which digital artifacts are being given abilities to predict and adapt to users. As the functionality develops, they will be able to anticipate and adapt to human needs (or an interpretation of them). A challenge is knowing not only the device’s “intentions” but also how to intervene if one disagrees. The device is given a degree of agency that feels like a step change in its usage. As well as a question of agency, this example raises questions of transparency (i.e., how to know what the device believes). Increasing the “smartness” of the artifacts carried, worn, or interacts with creates challenges (particularly when devices either fail completely or make erroneous predictions). This could suggest there’s a need for new ways of thinking about tool use to cope with these new breeds of tools. This is assumes that there’s a need for new strategies to address the technologies, and that strategies that have developed from the history of interacting with tools do not apply. While one might assume there is something special about digital technologies and their ability to function as intentional systems, it is plausible that humankind has always responded to tools as if they had intentionality. These questions of belief, intention, and agency might appear solely a matter for digital technology, but this chapter how they also apply to nondigital forms of technology.