Personalization and the Smart Home: questioning techno-hedonist imaginaries

Abstract

Smart home futures predicted and promoted in the discourses and practices of industry increasingly figure forms of automated decision making (ADM) into existing narratives of technological solutionism. This article interrogates how these narratives are constituted, the futures they imagine, predict and promote, and how people and households are presented within these futures. Our discussion is based on a content analysis of technology industry reports. The reports emphasize that the key to business success in the future is to use ADM to instantly satisfy individual preferences and to tailor products and services to the “market of one.” While the role of AI and algorithms in the creation of personalized media—particularly social media feeds—has garnered attention for its role in increasing political divisiveness around the world, less attention has been paid to the consequences of this individualized logic when applied and recreated in the design and installation of automated smart home technology. The technology sector’s emphasis on personalization treats the household as an individual self-motivated decision-making entity, despite the home being a complex socio-material assemblage shaped by constantly negotiated power differentials, such as by age, gender, and species. Thus, the discourse of “personalization” underpinning the imagination of emerging technology for the home and the individualized conception of human behavior which underpins it, lead to significant oversights when situated in the complexity of domestic life. Further we argue that this risks embedding an alienated understanding of human behavior—techno-hedonism—into ADM systems. We discuss how a persona of the techno-hedonist underlies visions of the personalized smart home, and its potential consequences through three interrelated concepts: convenience, control, and choice.

“Isn't this Marvelous”

“…Beyond the pandemic, the implications of this research for aged care providers, policy makers or HCI designers wishing to deploy similar smart devices in older adult homes are that these technologies must be viewed as supplements -rather than replacementsto other aged care services. This aligns with smart home literature which has resisted and complicated the technological solutionism narrative that positions smart home devices as capable of independently 'taking care' of the home and its occupants [8,67,74,87]. The devices trialed in this project could enhance wellbeing outcomes for older people ageing in place, but only when provided as optional extras alongside their in-home services, which remain of high importance for the sense of community connection, social interaction and reliability.…”

Two Years or More of Co-speculation: Polylogues of Philosophers, Designers, and a Tilting Bowl

“…He argues for critical examination of conceptual foundation of researchers reasoning and decision making in design processes. There are numerous works continuing to question and disrupt accepted terms and discourses within HCI including for example Sarah Fox s work of the underlying politics on public spaces and IoT [44], Austin Toomb s investigation of commonused terms in hackerspaces [115], and various works questioning the foundations of smart home ideals and its consequences [21,75,112].…”

Design Anthropological Filmmaking for Automated Futures

“…The film's engagement with this group also critically contests problematic narratives concerning the smart home. These have been characterized by, the "new white futurism" noted above (Rottinghaus, 2021) or the "techno-hedonist" persona, which Kari Dahlgren and colleagues coined to demonstrate how dominant representations show smart home technologies as serving the gratification of masculine gendered individuals by offering pleasure, efficiency and rationalization (Dahlgren et al, 2021).…”

“…Existing research has critically revealed that technologically solutionist (Morozov, 2013) “sociotechnical imaginaries” (Jasanoff & Kim, 2015) commonly envision futures in which monetised automated technologies—such as self-driving cars or digital voice assistants—will bring about economic, environmental and public benefits. Usually based on quantitative surveys, big data analytics and deep rooted assumptions that technological advancement drives positive change, their predictive claims leave little space for the experiential realities, contingencies and serendipity of the everyday (Dahlgren et al, 2021; Strengers et al, 2021). They moreover fuel research investment in engineering, computer sciences and technology design disciplines (Pink, 2022a), where if people are accounted for they are already framed into simplified faceless roles such as those of user, consumer or citizen (Pink, Fors, et al, 2022).…”