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Working with Useless Machines a Look at Our Shifting Relationship with Ubiquity Through Personal Assistants By: Nadine Lessio

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Working with Useless Machines a Look at Our Shifting Relationship with Ubiquity Through Personal Assistants By: Nadine Lessio Working With Useless Machines A look at our shifting relationship with ubiquity through personal assistants by: Nadine Lessio A thesis exhibition presented to OCAD University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design in Digital Futures 49 McCaul Street, April 12 - 15 Toronto, Ontario, Canada, April, 2018 Nadine Lessio 2018 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Canada (CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 CA) To see the license go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ca/ or write to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California 94105, USA. ii Copyright Notice This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You are free to: Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work Remix — to adapt the work Under the following conditions: Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Share Alike — If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. With the understanding that: Waiver — Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder. Public Domain — Where the work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license. Other Rights — In no way are any of the following rights affected by the license: • Your fair dealing or fair use rights, or other applicable copyright exceptions and limitations; • The author’s moral rights; • Rights other persons may have either in the work itself or in how the work is used, such as publicity or privacy rights. iii Author’s Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I authorize OCAD University to lend this thesis to other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. I further authorize OCAD University to reproduce this thesis by photocopying or by other means, in total or in part, at the request of other institutions or individuals for the purpose of scholarly research. Signature __________________________________________________ iv Abstract Working With Useless Machines Master of Design 2018 Nadine Lessio Digital Futures OCAD University This research explores how a nihilistic approach to the development of personal assistants can problematize the ways these technologies are being brought to market by using the concept of the useless machine. The research is organized around the creation of four prototypes: SAD Blender, Home Hub, Calendar Creep, Fortune Tasker, and a personal web server named Punchy. Each of these prototypes seek to critique the current corporate agenda of productivity, efficiency, and consumption, by creating machines that have no utilitarian function. This work investigates and defines useless machines in the contemporary context of personal assistants, and documents the development of each of the prototypes and server. Overall the research shows that while its not possible to completely divorce these devices from their parent corporations, they do serve as an important vehicle to explore the changing landscape of ubiquity, and our shifting ability to work and live with these connected objects. v Acknowledgments Most of all I want to thank my family and friends for their ongoing love and support. I would also like to thank my advisors Nick Puckett and Emma Westecott for their guidance and mentorship. As well as my colleagues Rob Russell for their contributions on Punchy, and Alanna Predko for their contributions to Fortune Tasker. This work was funded by a CGS-M Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship vi Table Of Contents Author’s Declaration ...............................................................................................................ii Abstract ...................................................................................................................................iii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................vii List of Figures ........................................................................................................................viii Chapter One 1 Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 1.1 Project Overview .................................................................................................1 1.2 What Is A Useless Machine? ..............................................................................3 1.2.1 Definition ..................................................................................................3 1.2.2 Influences ..................................................................................................3 1.3 Why Focus On Personal Assistants? ...................................................................5 1.3.1 Technological Hype Cycle ........................................................................5 1.3.2 Internet Nihilism .......................................................................................7 Chapter Two 10 Current Landscape ...........................................................................................................10 2.1 Background .........................................................................................................10 2.2 Consumer Landscape ..........................................................................................11 2.2.1 The Changing Home .................................................................................13 2.3 Development Landscape .....................................................................................15 2.3.1 Ubiquity Is Messy .....................................................................................15 2.3.2 Cloud Computing and Natural Language Processing ................................16 2.3.3 Edge Computing and Hybrid Models........................................................ 17 2.3.4 Network Topologies ..................................................................................18 2.3.5 IP To The Edge ..........................................................................................19 2.3.6 Where Personal Assistants Exist In This ...................................................20 Chapter Three 22 Contextual Review of Useless Machines ........................................................................22 3.1 Overview .............................................................................................................22 3.2 History ................................................................................................................22 Chapter Four 29 Research Methods............................................................................................................ 29 Chapter Five 31 Prototypes ........................................................................................................................31 5.1 Intro .....................................................................................................................31 5.2 Groundwork ........................................................................................................32 5.3 SAD Blender .......................................................................................................34 5.3.1 Description ................................................................................................34 5.3.2 Process .......................................................................................................34 vii 5.3.3 Documentation ..........................................................................................35 5.3.5 Reflections .................................................................................................37 5.4 Home Hub ...........................................................................................................38 5.4.1 Description ................................................................................................38 5.4.2 Process .......................................................................................................38 5.4.3 Documentation ..........................................................................................41 5.4.4 Reflections .................................................................................................43 5.5 Calendar Creep ...................................................................................................44 5.51 Description .................................................................................................44 5.5.2 Process .......................................................................................................44 5.5.3 Documentation ..........................................................................................45 5.5.4 Reflection ..................................................................................................46 5.6 Fortune
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