From Users to Shapers of AI: The Future of Research
Summary
Discover the transformative power of shifting from passive users to active shapers of AI in Tricia's compelling closing keynote. Unveiling the insidious "User Trap," Tricia exposes the pervasive sense of powerlessness entrenched in our tech-driven world. She champions a radical shift in the researcher's mindset, advocating liberation from the confines of being "user researchers" to versatile professionals adept at navigating the complexities of human-tech interactions, especially ones that force people into becoming users. As AI tooling improves, Tricia envisions a future where human ingenuity stands as the cornerstone, complementing and enhancing the capabilities of advanced AI tools. In this world, researchers who can truly understand human beings, gather thick data, and communicate complexity and context-loss with clarity, will become even more indispensable.
Key Insights
-
•
The term 'user' reduces complex human relationships to passive roles that serve platform interests.
-
•
AI’s cultural fear stems not only from the technology itself but from legacy issues of control in Web 2.0.
-
•
The 'user trap' describes our dependence on digital platforms that erode agency but are essential to modern life.
-
•
Shapers actively collaborate with AI, going beyond passive use to shape technology’s role in their lives.
-
•
Four key care skills of shapers are coaching, adaptive intelligence, responsibility, and viewing AI as an extension of self.
-
•
Big Tech’s control over AI risks repeating the mistakes of social media, potentially amplifying existing problems.
-
•
Thick data, or qualitative context-rich data, is essential to combat the complexity and context loss in AI-driven outputs.
-
•
Insight-driven organizational cultures outperform data-driven ones by integrating qualitative and quantitative knowledge.
-
•
Researchers need to move beyond 'user research' to fully embrace the complexity of people’s interaction with technology.
-
•
Experimenting personally and professionally with AI helps demystify the technology and encourages proactive engagement.
Notable Quotes
"AI is super polarizing — on one end, it’s discovering millions of new materials, on the other, it’s corrupting children’s experiences."
"We are stuck in the user trap because these platforms are central to being human today."
"In Web 2.0, a small group sets the rules and most people just play within them."
"Fear of AI comes from not trusting the inputs, the data powering these models."
"The user identity is a digital construct that commodifies humans for their data."
"Shapers combine human and machine intelligence and amplify each other’s strengths."
"Researchers might be the last people in organizations accountable for understanding humans."
"Our job is to fight context loss as data moves up layers of abstraction in AI outputs."
"Thick data is the opposite of big data and essential for rescuing lost context."
"Language matters — calling people 'users' reflects and reinforces the reality of reduced agency."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We have the same goal in mind – to give the customer the best experience – but we use different tools and languages."
Wendy JohanssonAn Education on Design Education for Orgs
June 10, 2021
"We’re not gatekeepers; we’re here to make sure research is accurate, efficient, and impactful, not to block people."
Brad Orego Ned DwyerBringing Customer Research to More Internal Teams
March 10, 2022
"When innovation cuts directly at people’s control over their work, fear and hesitancy are inevitable."
Steve BatyBreaking Out of Ruts: Tips for Overcoming the Fear of Change
June 9, 2016
"Ways to reduce extraction in research is by embedding community-led practices rather than holding the keys to knowledge ourselves."
Sarah FathallahLessening the Research Burden on Vulnerable Communities
March 30, 2020
"The goal of war gaming is to provide better quality information at the right time for better decisions."
Terry BuckmanWargaming (An Introduction)
August 10, 2023
"Without physical health, we cannot have creative health, and then we cannot have organizational health."
Alana WashingtonTheme 1: Introduction and Provocation
January 8, 2024
"When the whole team is trained in design thinking, they are measurably more aligned, more efficient, and more agile."
Doug PowellClosing Keynote: Design at Scale
November 8, 2018
"It costs about as much as a bottle of water in energy to generate a single email from an LLM system."
Aras BilgenWho does the math: A designer’s journey in building an AI-based tutoring app
June 10, 2025
"The secret ingredient to making this work and scale has been identifying and empowering track leads."
Melissa Schmidt Adam MenterHow UX Research Hit It Big in Las Vegas
June 4, 2019
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What strategies help designers manage executives who overestimate AI’s ability to replace skilled work?
How did AI factor into Rachel’s feelings about leaving the workforce and her current creative processes?
Why is the absence of self-governing professional institutions a challenge for the design field?