HCII2025 Design Café on Human-AI Teaming

The HCII Design Café is an interactive satellite event to be held in person during the HCII2025 conference. The goal is to provide a forum for (re)thinking and discussing HCI issues in the context of broader topics relevant to the society and the economy.  Inspired by the “World Café”, and following the successful HCII2023 Design Café, the HCII2025 Design Café is based on a proven valuable participatory scheme for engaging on specific topics, in a moderated small group, with interested stakeholders that come from different professions in related fields. The aim is to stimulate open dialogue, constructive deliberations, informal but meaningful collaboration to empower creativity and inspiration in a casual atmosphere, and to promote innovative approaches for transforming ideas into practice.

The focus topic of the HCII2025 Design Café is Human-AI Teaming (HAT).

Context:

With the enormously rapid advancements of technology in general and the increasing adoption and utilization of AI, in particular, in a wide range of application areas, the nature of human work must be subjected to review and evaluation. In the HCII2025 Design Café, we will focus on the following approach:

Humans and AI have each different unique strengths, the impact of which varies in the context of various application domains. In this respect, the development of a “team-concept” is required, based on collaboration models and ways of coupling and synchronizing the strengths of humans with the strengths of AI. The goal is to use the best of both “worlds” to optimize results and the ways to achieve them efficiently and effectively, keeping in mind that different mindsets and approaches can significantly impact the outcomes. Synchronization can focus on various overarching goals, such as cost effectiveness, high-quality results, and/or sustainability, humanity and prosperity.  

Approach:

The HCII2025 Design Café will focus on a HAT-configuration that requires humans to be in the loop and in control. Employing a team perspective, it seems obvious that joint collaborative work of people and machines (here AI-based components) could solve complex problems and tasks more effectively. Given the complexity of many challenges humankind is confronted with (climate change, starvation, natural resources, pandemics, biodiversity, fake news, etc.) humans need the support of digital technologies including AI (e.g., pattern recognition, intelligent data processing, smart scientific visualization, machine learning, generative AI). On the other hand, AI needs Human Intelligence (HI) for defining the goals and constraints when tackling these challenges, especially when following an ethics- and value-based approach. Furthermore, HI is needed for providing inspiration and guidance when solving problems which require creativity and visionary thinking.

The HCII2025 Design Café will explore how the architecture and framework of a HAT-configuration can be developed in a human-centered way (Human-/Humanity-Centered-Design approach) and in accordance with the policies of the EU AI ACT.

Three frameworks

will guide the HAT discussion at the HCII2025 Design Café:

1. The HCI Grand Challenge # 6: Learning and Creativity. This topic is addressed in the White Paper Seven HCI Grand Challenges, which arise in the emerging landscape of rapid technological evolution towards more intelligent interactive technologies and Artificial Intelligence.  “Learning and creativity are shaped by the advent of new technologies and are expected to be influenced by intelligent environments”.
2. The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) # 9: Foster Innovation, focusing on industry, innovation and infrastructure: “Improve scientific research and expand the technological capacities of industrial sectors in all countries and significantly     strengthen R&D (people, money)”
3. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (EU AI Act). It came into force on 1 August 2024. This “European regulation on artificial intelligence (AI)” is “the first comprehensive regulation on AI by a major regulator anywhere.” The Act assigns applications of AI to three risk categories. First, applications and systems that create an unacceptable risk, such as social scoring systems that manipulate behavior or exploit user vulnerabilities, are banned. Second, high-risk applications, such as a CV-scanning tool that ranks job applicants, are subject to specific legal requirements. Lastly, AI applications not explicitly banned or listed as high-risk are largely left unregulated.  It provides the frame, and key principles such as described in article 1 “Subject Matters” and in article 51, “Classification of General-Purpose AI Models as General-Purpose AI Models with Systemic Risk”.

The HCII025 Design Café is conceived, coordinated, and moderated by Christine Riedmann-Streitz (MarkenFactory GmbH and Goethe-University, Germany), and it will feature a keynote speech by Norbert Streitz (Smart Future Initiative, Germany). Discussions at the HCII2025 Design Café will be hosted by: Helmut Degen (Siemens Corporation, USA), Pei-Luen Patrick Rau (Tsinghua University, P.R. China), and George Margetis and Stavroula Ntoa (FORTH-ICS, Greece).

The results of the HCII2025 Design Café will be published.

Download the call for participation (231 KB)

Register for the HCII2025 Design Café

The HCII2025 Design Café will take place on Friday, 27 June 2025, 13:30 – 18:00 (Room to be announced), as an ‘in-person’ only event.

The event will be of interest to professionals, academic and research experts, students from Universities and Design Schools, individuals working in Design or R&D Departments in Industry, Government Institutions or Agencies, Service Providers, etc.

Participation is open to registered conference participants, but also to interested individuals not registered to the conference. A separate registration fee of ($60+VAT=)$75 is applicable for all participants. As the number of seats is limited, registrations will be accepted on a first-come, first-served basis.

Cancellation Policy

The Design Cafe registration fee is non-refundable, but it is transferable.