Boundaries Exploration
To find out more about the boundaries we could place on AI devices, this project may just be a good starting point. Through the participatory design of an arcade game machine, Nissen et al.’s (2019): Trustball project inspires people to trust a digital machine in relation to their privacy in the form of consent to the terms and conditions. Linking the co-dependence of boundaries and privacy, the project uses Roessler’s framework (Nissen et al., 2019, 4), a relatively new theory (made in 2006), to get a three dimensional view on privacy described as follows:
1. Decision privacy (privacy of actions and decisions, especially about people’s identity, way of life or projects they pursue without interference of others, self-determination)
2. Information privacy (the perceived control of distribution of personal data, connected to notions of privacy violations through surveillance and protection of freedom, autonomy and agency of the individual)
3. Local Privacy (the concept that individuals rights and freedoms developed in solitude and are conditional on having a space (home) to withdraw from public)
Following into the creation of the consent scenarios (Nissen et al., 2019, 6) in the Trustball project, the three dimensions are matched to different layers of privacy. My further research suggested that a comparable theory to the framework can be seen in the Islamic concept of privacy.
Considering the sensitive and reserved nature of the Islamic community, this extensive concept delves into separating what we consider as public data to “self” personal data. The above picture depicts a socio-cultural pattern in an Islamic household.
I then tried to match Roessler’s three dimensional feature of privacy with the various types of Islamic privacy and create a new platform as seen above. Since this is merely a speculation with no preceding empirical studies, I went on with a hypothesis whether this is a truthful concept to be used for setting our boundaries, and whether a certain data is indeed more valuable than others. To identify people’s boundaries against data collection, a roleplay experiment was conducted. To frame its concept, I decided to put a focus on using one of the latest AI based devices, the voice assistant.