Rosenverse
Video coming soon
We will be uploading the video of this event soon - check back in a day or two!

Tuning the Turing Machines

Conference ticket
Friday, September 25, 2026 • Shift UX 2026
Share the love for this talk
Tuning the Turing Machines
Speakers: Dan Saffer
Link:

Summary

A hammer that requires practice to use is a bad hammer. A cello that doesn't is a bad cello. We judge tools by what they make; we judge instruments by what they make us. Almost every AI product right now is a tool: engineered so that what you get on day one is what you'll get in year three, and (don’t get me wrong) that's a real achievement. But what if AI products were something else? This talk makes the case for considering an instrument as a design target: capability that compounds with use instead of absconding with it. We'll go through the four properties that separate the two, and put our own practice on the table to see which of our skills we've surrendered.

More Videos

Kristen Honey

"I got my PhD so I could get a seat at the table."

Kristen Honey

"Let’s Talk About Data and Crisis”: Public Digital Service Delivery = Open Data + Human Centered Design

November 18, 2021

Kate Towsey

"Research’s role may shift to orchestrators of AI-synthesized insights and gap analyses rather than just primary data collectors."

Kate Towsey Basel Fakhoury Oren Friedman Graham Gardner

Participant Recruitment and Management Tools

March 12, 2026

Ariel Kennan

"We want more practical case studies showing how specific teams approached problems and what they learned."

Ariel Kennan

Civic Design in 2022

January 13, 2022

Bria Alexander

"Sometimes resources are available as soon as an hour or 30 minutes after the talk, like the team is working miracles."

Bria Alexander

Day 2 Welcome

September 24, 2024

Emily Lessard

"No spec work. It’s simply disrespectful to ask small businesses to do unpaid homework."

Emily Lessard

RFPs Without Tears: Writing Inclusive RFPS that Don't Scare Away Talent

December 9, 2021

Jim Kalbach

"Experience mapping brought a new understanding that helped us draw former extremists into peace efforts."

Jim Kalbach

Peace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences

June 14, 2018

Richard Buchanan

"Design is a service profession, a humble profession, less significant than the lives of the people we serve."

Richard Buchanan

Creativity and Principles in the Flourishing Enterprise

June 15, 2018

George Zhang

"Recognition programs help create a happy, inclusive, and high-performing global team focused on impact."

George Zhang Molly Stevens

UX Research Excellence Framework

March 11, 2021

Bilan Hashi

"Whose story gets told, the participant or the researcher, is also a question of knowledge production."

Bilan Hashi

The Tension Between Story Collecting and Story Telling in Research

March 10, 2021