Technology: Ideo reveals five AI machines that explore ways technology can help people sort their thoughts, plan for the future, and even communicate better with each other. The Creativity Mixer, in collaboration.

Talk of artificial intelligence is often wrapped in confusion or paranoia or both. You know, like: “How are Russian hackers manipulating Facebook’s news algorithm to subvert democracy?” The hodgepodge of clever computing technologies has been baffling interface designers, too, as they try to figure out how to make AI genuinely useful but not overwhelming, or menacingTo grapple with the challenge, design firm Ideo built five single-purpose AI machines that explore ways technology can help people sort their thoughts, plan for the future, and even communicate better with each other.

Jure Martinec, senior interaction designer at Ideo’s Munich office, lead an effort to get a conversation going with clients through a private exhibit of the gadgets, called Hyper Human. Ideo made a big bet on AI when it purchased Chicago-based data-science firm Datascope in October 2017, and Hyper Human was an opportunity to show off its AI chops to clients.

Using deliberate retro designs to make the tech less intimidating, Ideo’s devices are not prototypes of any products you will see soon, or ever. Instead they aim to provoke ideas about how fast-evolving AI technologies, such as natural language processing (NLP), can help people. (For a reality check, I discussed the ideas with NLP guru Kieran Snyder, CEO and cofounder of Textio, which uses the tech to hone the wording of job descriptions and other recruiting documents.)

“It was really important . . . to highlight a human-centered approach to AI as well and how we could use the processes or the sense of AI to augment our most human aspects,” says Grishma Rao, an Ideo interaction designer in Munich