speculation – Persuasion | CMU School of Design

Mulch Monsters

A Speculative Product and Service by Ray Pai [C]

Mulch Monsters are automated composting machines that subvert the common perception of composting in homes. Food waste sent to landfills break down into methane, a greenhouse gas that depletes the ozone layer. An approach to reducing food waste is to encourage composting, which breaks food waste down into mulch. Mulch can be used in community gardens or for your own houseplants. That’s why Mulch Monster is framed as an opportunity to be health conscious and prosocial towards the community.

Mulch Monsters subvert the common misconception that composting smells bad, takes up too much space, and is labor intensive. Insted, it’s compact, automated, and educates users on how to reduce odors. In addition, it encourages behavior change by providing encouraging data through a supplementary app, which shows the quality of the mulch. Lastly, Mulch Monster is designed with the consideration of unintended consequences. With the concern that Mulch Monster makes throwing away food waste TOO fun, the supplementary app encourages users to produce quality mulch instead of large quanitites of mulch.

Introspect: A Guide Towards Intentional Activism

Uncategorized

Shannon Ha (Products), Elizabeth Han (Environments)

In the speculative future of 2030, the bad actors of social media activism run rampant amongst young adults, especially college students. Many use performative activism on social media as a way to display outward projections of social awareness, when in reality, their ignorance and reposting does nothing to contribute to a social movement. Our intervention is Introspect, two voice AI characters ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Inner Shadow’, built into existing social media platforms. ‘Introspect’ encourages people who post or repost about social movements to question their own motives behind doing so and ultimately change their ways of thinking over time by evolving the types of questions being asked. The hope is that people can form their own opinion about performative activism by interacting with the dialogues. As the user ultimately decides what to post, regardless of the advice, the power is in their hands.

The Voices: ‘Guiding Light’ and ‘Inner Shadow’

Guiding Light and Inner Shadow represent two ends of a spectrum in critical thinking. ‘Guiding Light’ helps users progress through their ‘activist’ journey by questioning their motivations to promote deeper reflection and by also suggesting meaningful acts of contribution to their social cause of interest. ‘Inner Shadow’ enables the user to act upon their mindless social media habits and encourages outward projections of social awareness as opposed to intentional acts. The hope is that people can form their own opinion about performative activism by interacting with the dialogues. Since the user ultimately decides what to post, regardless of the advice, the power is in their hands.

Progress Over Time: ‘Guiding Light’ At All Levels

Overtime, the ‘Guiding Light’ would give more advanced suggestions based on the level of activism the user has engaged in. The ‘Guiding Light’ not only suggests more challenging resources for advancing users, but also asks more provocative questions for the users to come to their own conclusion about what activism means for them. This would guide the users towards viewing activism as a lifelong journey, rather than a momentary gesture.

AI.plant

Uncategorized

A Tabletop Campaign by Emily Zhou [P]

AI.plant is a plant adoption campaign questions what it takes to feel fulfilled and how that differs from person to person. Expectations are shifting as younger generations are opting to remain child-free, instead devoting their love and attention to pets, partners, careers and interests. AI.plant pushes this into speculative territory by throwing AI-embedded plants into the mix, reiterating that your life decisions are yours alone, and only you get to decide your definition of fulfillment.