Explainable AI through the Lens of Material Agency: Enabling Musical Interface Design with Neural Audio Models
This paper proposes material explainability as a way to make AI models accessible and inclusive design materials for artists, designers, and makers, using a case study of building a repository for neural audio models in New Interfaces for Musical Expression.
Proposing material explainability as a new concept for working with AI models in creative practices
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Applications
- →Artistic exploration of AI models
- →New Interfaces for Musical Expression
To understand this paper, make sure you know these concepts first:
- Understanding of Human-Computer Interactionfind papers →
- Basic knowledge of AI modelsfind papers →
Abstract
More Like ThisRecent work in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) increasingly treats AI models as design materials that have distinctive computational properties to shape design artifacts. Artists learn to work with the model "at play" to explore their emerging properties. The aim of explainability, in this view, is to make visible a crafting and hacking space to enable sustained creative practices with AI. In this chapter, we propose material explainability as a range of activities and artifacts that transform AI models into accessible and inclusive design materials in the workspace of artists, designers, and makers. We present a case study of building a repository of resources to enable artistic explorations of neural audio models in New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME) design. Reflecting on our community-building journey and the making of a collection of musical interface designs with a group of artists, we raise three recommendations on enabling the exploration of AI as materials in artistic practices to inspire future XAI design for artists.