Exploring the Referral and Usage of Science Fiction in HCI Literature

Abstract

Research on science fiction (sci-fi) in scientific publications has indicated the usage of sci-fi stories, movies or shows to inspire novel Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Yet no studies have analysed sci-fi in a top-ranked computer science conference at present. For that reason, we examine the CHI main track for the presence and nature of sci-fi referrals in relationship to HCI research. We search for six sci-fi terms in a dataset of 5812 CHI main proceedings and code the context of 175 sci-fi referrals in 83 papers indexed in the CHI main track. In our results, we categorize these papers into five contemporary HCI research themes wherein sci-fi and HCI interconnect: 1) Theoretical Design Research; 2) New Interactions; 3) Human-Body Modification or Extension; 4) Human-Robot Interaction and Artificial Intelligence; and 5) Visions of Computing and HCI. In conclusion, we discuss results and implications located in the promising arena of sci-fi and HCI research.

Investigating the Intersection of Science Fiction, Human-Computer Interaction and Computer Science Research

“…The related work provides a thematic literature review and indicates a mutual, yet not quantified, relationship of both fields. The prior work introduces three pilot studies [19,20,21] which confirmed the presence and usage of SF concepts in the ACM Digital Library (DL), respectively the CHI proceedings. To further investigate these suggestions and corroborate RO1, an in-depth study of the occurrence of SF in a larger scientific corpus of peer-reviewed publications is conducted in a comparable collection, that is the IEEE Xplore DL repository.…”

“…In 2017, the first pilot study on Star Trek in the ACM DL was published [19]. In 2018, the second pilot study was published in the context of the 2018 HCII conference [20].…”

“…In 2016, an external research grant [25], through a collaboration with a senior researcher from the University of Western Sydney, Australia, of $3,500 was awarded. In 2018, the latest paper of the research project [20] was referenced in the MIT Emerging Technology News [26]. An ACM Interactions (IX) blog post [27] on the topic of SF and HCI was published in early 2018.…”

influencia de la ciencia ficción en la tecnología y la robótica

“…Esta influencia se da, principalmente, en tres ámbitos: el planteamiento teórico, la exploración de otras formas de interacción entre humanos y máquinas y el estudio acerca de la posibilidad de modificar el cuerpo humano. Además, el asesoramiento con miras a la ciencia ficción en las empresas y laboratorios de investigación cada vez es más común, con el objetivo de crear nuevas máquinas que respondan a un adecuado impacto social (Jordan, Mubin, Obaid, Silva, 2018).…”

Reflecting on the Presence of Science Fiction Robots in Computing Literature

“…In continuation of recent prior work, for example [33,34], our research methodology is based on content analysis and text mining of the presence of sci-fi-based robots in literature, a technique that emerges from the field of Scientometrics [38]. A similar method also applied by others, for instance de Souza [14], who currently explores the usages of the words and concepts of "human" or "user" within theoretical computer science repositories.…”