Enhancing equality in AI through participatory design with vulnerable populations

Recent developments in artificial intelligence and generative AI create new possibilities to design and develop user-centered technologies for health promotion and well-being. Older adults, in particular, are considered an important user group of AI and robotic technologies due to possibilities to enhance agency and independence. These technologies, nevertheless, need to be aligned with values and identities in later life to achieve the expected health benefits, and enhance long-term user engagement in human-AI interaction.

This lecture presents a framework to explore and design inclusive AI technologies for healthy living a particular attention to demographic changes caused by the ageing population. Building on my research on user-centered design of AI and robotic technologies with older adults, the lecture addresses participatory design as an approach to enhance mutual shaping of technology, and the socioaffective alignment of AI technologies with identities and practices in later life. At the end, the lecture discusses to what extent participatory methodologies in human-AI interaction can uncover power relations, and thus contribute to a more equal and inclusive interactions with AI and robotic technologies.