Trusting Intelligent Automation in Expert Work: Accounting Practitioners’ Experiences and Perceptions
Saara Ala-Luopa, Thomas Olsson , Kaisa Väänänen , Maria Hartikainen , Jouko Makkonen
Abstract
AI-based applications are increasingly used in knowledge-intensive expert work, which has led to a discussion regarding their trustworthiness, i.e., to which degree these applications are ethical and reliable. While trust in technology is an important aspect of using and accepting novel information systems, little is known about domain experts’ trust in machine learning systems in their work. To provide a real-life, empirical perspective on the topic, this study reports findings from an interview study of accounting practitioners’ (N=9) trust in intelligent automation in their work. The findings underline the holistic nature of trust, suggesting that contextual and social aspects, such as participatory design practices, shape domain experts’ trust in intelligent automation. For instance, the participants emphasize their contribution to product development and open communication with the system developers. In addition, the findings shed light on the characteristics of domain experts as technology users, such as the necessity of situation-specific expert knowledge when evaluating the systems’ reliability. Thus, our findings suggest that trust in intelligent automation manifests at different levels, both in human-AI interaction and interpersonal communication and collaboration. This research contributes to the existing literature on trust in technology, especially AI-powered applications, by providing insights into trust in intelligent automation in expert work.
Enacting Entanglement: CreaTures, Socio-Technical Collaboration and Designing a Transformative Ethos
Ann Light, Jaz Hee-jeong Choi , Lara Houston , Andrea Botero
Abstract
What happens when we try to enact theory in our practices of collaboration? The CreaTures project spent three years exploring the challenges of conceptualising and enacting entanglement in using creative practice to try and change worldviews towards understandings of interdependence. Acknowledging the backdrop to our work as pressing ecological breakdown, we sought to practice the cultural change we hoped to inspire. We discuss what we learnt about the socio-technical aspects of cooperation in managing entangled engagement as a methodological, as well as ontological, position. We centre this on a case study of how digital technology became a factor in both helpful and surprising ways during the project in response to the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic. The paper concludes with reflections on how taking the spatial metaphor of entanglement, rather than scale, has helped us understand agency in our work. In discussing this transdisciplinary project as part of CSCW scholarship, we hope to open a space for questioning dominant techno-economic values and show how alternative philosophy can be enacted in practice in supporting transformation to a different design ethos.
Everyday Diagnostic Work in the Histopathology Lab: CSCW Perspectives on the Utilization of Data-Driven Clinical Decision Support Systems
Rob Procter, Mark Rouncefield , Peter Tolmie , Clare Verrill
Abstract
In this paper we present an ethnographic study of the work of histopathologists as they grapple with the twin innovations of transitioning to digital biopsy images and the prospective adoption of an AI-based clinical decision support system (CDSS). We explore how they are adapting to the former and their expectations of the latter. The study’s ethnomethodologically-informed ethnography approach brings to light some key issues regarding the nature of diagnostic work, and accountability and trust that are central to the successful adoption of technological innovations in clinical settings.
Fleeting Alliances and Frugal Collaboration in Piecework: A Video-Analysis of Food Delivery Work in India
Riyaj Shaikh, Moira Mcgregor , Barry Brown , Airi Lampinen
Abstract
Food delivery platforms are designed to match on-demand workers with jobs and then manage, monitor, and assess their performance with minimal human intervention and high reliance on technology. The platform provides the worker with a digital representation of the world where the delivery work happens. However, once the worker accepts a food delivery job from a platform, they need to move through and deal with the realities of the social complexities and unsettled urban landscape of the varied infrastructures, traffic, and regulations around them. The Global South presents a particularly demanding context for this type of work, given less clearly mapped addresses and other socio-cultural intricacies. In order to understand and describe how food delivery workers bridge any gaps and mismatches between the demands of the food delivery app and the realities encountered \textit{in situ}, we shadowed six delivery workers over the course of their working day. The six workers involved ranged from a complete novice, to experienced riders who rely entirely on platform apps to earn a living. We used video to capture participants’ efforts to perform food delivery work in Pune, India, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our moment by moment analysis of the video data was informed by the methodological traditions of ethnomethodology and conversation analysis and provides an evidence-based perspective of platform-mediated food delivery work \textit{in situ}. While the food delivery platform imposes a detailed workflow expected to be performed alone by the worker, our detailed video analysis reveals the collaborative nature of delivery gig work. We highlight how workers draw upon their ability to participate in `fleeting alliances’ and produce `frugal collaboration’ with co-located others, like other delivery workers or security guards, to be able to resolve everyday, immediate troubles, often learning or imparting `the tricks of the trade’ in the process. While gig platform technologies have commonly been presented as disruptive tools by which to coordinate, regulate, and assess gig workers individually and independently in contrast to earlier collaborative workplace technologies, our findings highlight collaboration as a critically important aspect of food delivery work.
The Generative Role of Objects in Infrastructure Design: A Case of Designing a System for Continuity of Care
Christopher Sadorge, Monika Nerland , Miria Grisot
Abstract
This study explores the generative role of objects in design work. While the CSCW literature includes a range of contributions on infrastructure design and ways of accounting for diverse existing systems, practices and perspectives in design, the focus has typically been on the point of use, rather than the earlier stages of design processes. However, as more worker groups become involved in design there is a need to understand the microdynamics of collaborative design in this phase and the interplay between problem framing and exploration. We examined how the design of an information system in the health sector evolved through the instantiation and exploration of intermediary objects that become generative in the design process. The data comprised observations over 2 years from design meetings with a team of health professionals and software developers mandated to develop a system for the registration and sharing of patient information across primary care units. The analysis showed how intermediary objects formed focal points from which infrastructure design problems were framed and collectively explored. These processes required considerable negotiation and exploration within and between the interdependencies that become relevant in the design process. We identified how intermediary objects take different representational forms and become generative in two ways: By producing new or transformed objects, and by revealing layers of complexity inherent in the design problem. We discussed implications of the analysis as regards aspects of the infrastructure design that can be handled in the design team versus aspects that should be delegated to local adaptation.
Analysis of coordination mechanisms during collaborative problem-solving on an interactive tabletop display
Valerie Maquil, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Hoorieh Afkari, Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology, Béatrice Arend, University of Luxembourg: Universite du Luxembourg, Svenja Heuser, University of Luxembourg: Universite du Luxembourg, Patrick Sunnen, University of Luxembourg: Universite du Luxembourg
Abstract
Coordination is an important aspect of group work. Previous studies have shown how collocated multi-user interfaces, such as interactive tabletops, support coordination by providing a shared space that enhances workspace awareness. However, only little is known about the coordination processes that occur during problem-solving on such shared devices and how the design of features and interaction techniques can impact coordination behaviour. In this paper we analyse users’ coordination mechanisms during joint manipulation tasks in Orbitia, an interactive tabletop-based problem-solving activity. The proposed design integrates a series of “breaches” seeking to challenge participants’ collaboration by confronting them to different limitations. We report on a case study with five groups of three users (N=15), jointly solving tasks while facing different challenges related to the activity interface and the environment. By analysing 135 minutes of video material along with their transcripts, we identified nine different coordination mechanisms that relate to either coordination of information or coordination of actions. By exploring the occurrences of these mechanisms, we found that sharing unsolicited task-relevant information is a common coordination behaviour that can be observed at interactive tabletops, and that with breaches, more explicit coordination in the form of direct requests, orders, or shadowing is used.
Using a service lens to better understand practices – and vice versa
B. Farshchian, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Marius Mikalsen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet
Abstract
Many studies of practices involve service exchange, and many service researchers have discovered the central role that sociotechnical practices play in service –in particular, within the service-dominant logic school of thought. In this paper, we propose an analytical lens that builds on this mutual interest to understand complex practices involving service exchange. Practice researchers can gain new insights regarding practices embedded in service ecosystems. At the same time, service researchers can better explain actor behavior by looking deeper at sociotechnical practices. We develop a concept toolbox based on practice and service-dominant logic research literature. We illustrate the usefulness of the toolbox through an interpretative case study of public service to include children with disabilities in leisure activities. Seeing practices as parts of larger multi-stakeholder service ecosystems 1) can help us better explain behavior in those practices and understand how they are affected by other overlapping practices, 2) brings forward the importance of value and how multiple actors need to interact in order to create value for each other, and 3) enriches service-dominant logic with a focus on sociotechnical aspects that are central to many practice studies.
Cultivating Data Practices Across Boundaries: How Organizations Become Data-Driven
Asbjørn Malte Pedersen, Claus Bossen
Abstract In this paper, we analyze the efforts of a public healthcare business intelligence unit to implement and disseminate their products and thus make the healthcare organization more data-driven. The paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a healthcare business intelligence (the BIU) whose mission is to improve healthcare efficiency and quality by making data and data analyses available to healthcare managers and staff. Their primary products consist of a data warehouse and Data Reports, both providing curated and daily updated data for healthcare staff to analyze and visualize. We conceptualize these Data Reports and the data warehouse as boundary objects through which cooperation around data betwen various users is achieved. Our focus is on the BIU’s efforts to introduce and promote the use of boundary objects to healthcare staff while providing them with the competencies to use them in practice. Efforts that we conceptualize as collaborative boundary work through which a new joint field of working with data is created between the BIU and healthcare staff. Based on the analysis of the ethnographic fieldwork, we point to three important aspects in creating this new joint field: Mobilizing interest, building local capabilities, and propagating data locally. The paper makes three contributions: It adds to our understanding of how new joint fields can be cultivated through collaborative boundary work to make healthcare data-driven; it contributes to the emergent field of data work studies; and finally, it adds to the largely normative literature on business intelligence and self-service busniness intelligence through an ethnographic analysis of its efforts to make healthcare data-driven