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Protocoling HCI: Hardening Interaction into Infrastructure

TalkBotao Amber Hu
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Protocoling HCI: Hardening Interaction into Infrastructure
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Botao Amber Hu presents 'Protocoling HCI,' an early-stage design theory arguing that HCI must shift from designing moments of use to designing protocols as infrastructural material that shapes local action spaces while enabling emergent collective behavior. Drawing on Michael Levine's work on agential material, bioelectric morphogenesis, and 'cognitive glue,' plus concepts like emergent engineering and reverse game theory, Hu proposes that protocols act as 'trust compressors' that let bounded agents coordinate without full mutual knowledge, illustrated through the NFT art piece Merge as a 'protocol art' example.

Topics

agential-material-and-cognitive-glue-michael-levineconstitutive-local-action-spaceemergent-engineering-reverse-game-theoryfictionprotocol-as-trust-compressor-epistemic-complexityprotocoling-hardening-interaction-into-infrastructureprotocolssymposium-2026technology

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