Human Usurper Blurbs

Bringing a few headlines from the world beyond human capability:

Uber applies for patent to spot drunk passengers
Jun 2018, BBC News

Taxi app company Uber has applied for a patent to use artificial intelligence to determine how drunk potential passengers might be. 

The app used to summon rides could also feed other information to the driver, including a passenger's location, how accurately they are typing and even the angle they are holding their phone at. [...] 

Critics expressed concern that an app that could predict user behaviour could be used by drivers wishing to prey on vulnerable passengers. 

Cyan colour hidden ingredient in sleep
Jun 2018, BBC News

The colour cyan - between green and blue - is a hidden factor in encouraging or preventing sleep, according to biologists. 

University of Manchester researchers say higher levels of cyan keep people awake, while reducing cyan is associated with helping sleep. 

The impact was felt even if colour changes were not visible to the eye. [...]

When people were exposed to more or less cyan, researchers were able to measure different levels of the sleep hormone melatonin in people's saliva.

Prof Rob Lucas said that it was not necessary for someone to be able to see the difference in colours, as the body reacted to the change even if it was not visible to the naked eye.

Adobe says it can identify manipulated images using AI
July 2018, BBC News

The company behind the photo-editing program Photoshop says it has developed a tool that can detect if an image has been tampered with. [...] 

Existing verification tools can scan an image file's metadata - which contains information on when and where a photo was taken - for signs of mischief, and look for things like inconsistent lighting. 

But such tests are easily defeated. [...] 

"Each of these [manipulation] techniques tend to leave certain artefacts, such as strong contrast edges, deliberately smoothed areas, or different noise patterns," he notes. [Vlad Morariu, Adobe researcher]

image source: https://www.biosciencetechnology.com/article/2015/05/biodigital-human-exploring-health-3d

Memetics in Building Systems User-Interface

The User

The topic of user-interface doesn’t come up much between architects and designers. And it’s no wonder why. To quote from another text:

Blueprints and regulations are complex, but people are all the more. The planner draws straight lines and geometric shapes. The architect uses energy-efficient systems and strategies. Then people come in. They cut corners; they walk on the grass and right through the bushes. They turn off the automatic light sensors. “If only there were no people to complicate things and reveal the flaws in my design…”

-Crowdsourcing Reform, 2010

Yet, the implementation of energy efficiency in buildings comes down to the user. Design all you want, the user will tear that up. Automate? Override.

The building is, both phylo- and ontogenetically, a Dawkins’ Extended Phenotype, in direct contact with the user.

Buildings vs. Building and Users vs. User

Building systems need to be easy-to-understand for the user, and that need is not overshadowed here. However, the kind of user-interface that can be affected by such ‘educational’ characteristics of building systems is for the individual user. What is now deemed a manipulable component of this interface, by the rising attention to memetics, is the attitudes and beliefs of the user-at-large in regards to what a building is and what it does, and especially what their place is in the relationship between them and the built systems.

The Communicability of Building Systems

A “self-propagating” meme is one with high visibility; photovoltaics and fashion trends are examples. “Cast iron cookware is awesome” is not a self-propagating meme; it is much less visible. Surely this has been proposed before, and the Pompidou pays the price, but it must be recontextualized in our current social and physical infrastructure: Building systems must make themselves more visible, while clearly communicating what it is they do and what should be done with them.

It must be noted, it is not being said, for example, that the 'wiring' needs to be visible, just the 'light switch'. And perhaps not even that, but some-thing that communicates what particular part of the electrical system it is and what is to be done with it (depending on environmental and user conditions alike).

See also Architectural Semiotics