Generative AI as a Playful yet Offensive Tourist: Exploring Tensions Between Playful Features and Citizen Concerns in Designing Urban Play

Research Background and Issues

• Identified Problems or Challenges: The authors explore the tensions involved in applying generative artificial intelligence (GAI) to urban interaction design, including the contradictions between its intriguing features and citizens' concerns. These tensions encompass unintended harm, bias, and navigation safety issues related to the redefinition of dynamic urban spaces.
• Significance: GAI is considered capable of enriching the socio-cultural dimensions of cities. However, its use may also lead to ethical dilemmas, social disruptions, and infrastructure complexities, challenges that require comprehensive consideration by designers.
• Research Motivation and Related Work: Inspired by previous studies on urban play and technology-assisted urban interaction, the authors aim to investigate how GAI can support this field while addressing gaps in research concerning citizen attitudes and ethical issues in real urban environments.

Solution

• Proposed Approach:
  • Developed a GAI tool named "iWonder," which generates new content based on input images and text prompts, designed to explore playful games or interaction opportunities in urban spaces.
  • Conducted two rounds of workshops with designers and citizens to evaluate GAI's role in supporting urban play from different perspectives and to further develop design concepts.
• Innovative Features:
  • Integrated scene-based image editing functionality for on-site applications.
  • Introduced the metaphor of "GAI as a visitor who is both playful and potentially offensive" to describe the tensions in its innovation.
  • Proposed multidimensional urban play qualities (e.g., emotional, intellectual, social performance, and actionability) to analyze GAI's design potential.
• Implementation Steps and Techniques:
  • Used the iWonder tool to inspire designers to activate six playful features in urban environments.
  • Organized design workshops to conceptualize and prototype urban play examples, refining human-GAI interaction through design canvases.
  • Conducted citizen workshops to collect bottom-up feedback, uncovering design risks and application barriers.

Research Outcomes

• Specific Results:

  • Identified six playful features of GAI in urban spaces, including visual transformation, rediscovery of scenes, intersections of reality and imagination, defamiliarization experiences, whimsical spatial collages, and collaborative creation through transmission.
  • Developed six urban game design concepts based on GAI, encompassing socio-cultural interaction, urban reshaping, personalized expression, and public art creation.
  • Summarized the tension between the "playfulness" and potential "discomfort" of GAI in revitalizing urban spaces.

• Advantages:

  • GAI enhances the "action qualities" of urban spaces, providing citizens with design tools for urban reconstruction.
  • Its "meaningful uncertainty" increases the diversity and emotional value of citizens' urban exploration.
  • Its "social expressiveness" fosters opportunities for improvisational collaboration in shared spaces.

• Experimental and Evaluation Results:

  • Citizen evaluations indicate that the design concepts have the potential to promote socio-cultural vitality in urban spaces, but attention must be paid to GAI's sensitivity issues in urban environments.
  • Challenges include fatigue and marginalization caused by design content misalignment, disruptive modifications to urban landscapes, and the uncontrolled spread of misleading content.

• Limitations and Future Directions:

  • Technical limitations include data bias, inconsistency in generated results, and disparities in users' prompt skills.
  • In terms of social impact, tensions between safety, cultural preservation, and innovation require further exploration.
  • The authors suggest conducting field tests and multi-stakeholder workshops to optimize designs and ensure alignment with citizens' needs and ethical responsibilities.
  • Future research should systematically investigate how GAI can balance flexibility and social responsibility, driving innovation in urban play while minimizing potential harm or offense.

This analysis provides designers, researchers, and urban policymakers with insights into the complexities of GAI in urban environments, enabling them to design and deploy related technologies more responsibly.