E323 - AI The Teammate Guy

(A) E323 - AI The Teammate Guy

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[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Well, hello. Oh yeah, yeah. Speak- oh, shoot. Geez, do this nut for a week or two and yet you forget the music. Hang on, I gotta get, gotta get the music going. Hi everybody, welcome to the, uh, the pre-show. Pre-show. This is, this is the pre-show thing that we're doing. It's, it- ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Well, it's been a while so people might have forgotten.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~So. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Well, I clearly did because I didn't have the music going. There's the music.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Oh, dear. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Got the music. Should I bring back the voice? Should I bring back the voice? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I think you need to take us through the voices because, um, I don't see why I should be the only one who, who's subjected to them. Sorry, who gets to appreciate them. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. So here's one of the voices. Is it coming through?~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~You ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~know what, I, I... Yeah, it is, and I'm a fan of that one. I think I'm, I'm... Is it verging on bad professionalism if, to suggest that you should be using that one throughout the entire show? I think it'd be cool. Hmm. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Good idea. Yeah. Um- ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Then people might think the podcast been take, been taken over by six-year-olds.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Perhaps. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I mean- Uh, I- Some people might suggest that ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~anyway, but- Yeah. I, I think so. We, uh, we, we started playing around with a different, um, with different software here. And, um, one thing that we have is access to all these fun, fun~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~voices. Uh, this is, this is one of them, uh, called Chibiko.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It, it, it sounds just like, so there's a guy in the UK, and I think he's on TikTok or something, but he's, um, called Tiny Tim, and he, he makes that sort of voice- Mm ... but, um, like schools and things like this is do- doing prank calls, um, with his thing. So exactly that s- that same sort of voice. There's, ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~um, there's several other ones here.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, without previewing these, I'm gonna select one that calls, that's called 8 Bit. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Okay. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. So here's 8 Bit It kind of sounds like, uh ... Okay. It's a slight- I, I can see. Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's a ba- it's, it's, it's slightly clipped. It's slightly clipped, but which I guess is what, what the point is, isn't it?~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~But it's, uh- Sure. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, here's, here's megaphone. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Megaphone. Hello. Welcome to Human Factors Cast. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. Oh, that, see, that, that's the, our new intro voice surely. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Yeah. I feel like I need to have a megaphone here I can only slightly hear the preview ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, no, that's good. I like that. That's cool. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, what about, um ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Cheap, cheap microphone.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Microphone ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, 'cause this one is different from your old one, but- Yeah ... that'd be rude. Um, ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~this one's called Out of Rain. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, uh- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Break up now and then to have regular it ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Again, you could argue is different from the normal, but anyway~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~How about telephone? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Oh. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, like- Really cuts the base on that one ... ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~yeah, that's just, like, really, really tinny. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Tinny.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~So, what's wow wow wow? Wow wow ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~wow wow wow wow wow. Yeah, that's just wow wow wow. What's going on? It's 'cause, yeah, like you're underwater somewhere~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~How about astronaut? This one could be fun if we have, uh, a space themed episode. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Well, we, we must be due some of them soon because we haven't- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Yeah ... ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~had one in a while, so... 'Cause we, we- Ooh ... we're back to talking about AI tonight, so you need something, uh, more AI themed. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Yeah. Uh, well, here, there, there's this one.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I have zero clue what's gonna happen here. This one's called censored~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And I'm wondering if it's just gonna censor every now and then. That's kind of hilarious. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Again, you could do the entire podcast with the whole bunch of ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Like that. Yep. All right. Let's, let's kill that for now. Uh, what have we got here?~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~T, I was trying to get Amanda to come and join us tonight as well ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh. Oh. That would ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~be ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~delightful. But then we rearranged the, well, the cabin, the studio where, where we do this, and so it's, it wouldn't quite work because the rest of it is, is an absolute dump. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Mm. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, I think I sent you a photo a couple weeks ago where I've g- got a larger desk in here now.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~And, um, 'cause I wanted that camera to be further away from me, and so to have more desk to, to do stuff with. And, um, yeah, but it means that now both of us trying to do this at the same time would, just wouldn't work. So, um, she was very much of the, "Oh, that's a shame," in a way that is, she wasn't that bothered about it at all.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I see. Oh. This one's called The Narrator. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. No, that's, that sounds deep and meaningful ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Welcome to another episode of Human Factors Cast ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I s- very Morgan Freeman there. I li- I like ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~that Yeah. Uh, this next one is called Magic Chords. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Okay. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And I'm gonna sing you human factors. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Love it. So, you, you so need to take this to, um, HFES.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~It would be a ton of fun. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, I've... No, I, I, I sort of get the feeling that maybe the organizers wouldn't think it was as funny as we do. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Maybe. Who knows? Uh. This one's called Cringity ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Okay ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Again, not, uh... Oh, okay. The background music that we gotta kill ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, pretty much ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Let's see~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~AI nine thousand ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Justin ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Hello, Nick and Barry. I am here to talk about human factors with you. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Cool. So we're- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Today's story is about ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~AI ... yeah, that, that feels like it sh- you, you... the whole thing should be done in that. Um, or you, if they... given that we talk about human factors teaming, maybe, maybe there needs to be a bit of a, um, some sort of- You need one ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~too~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~oh, that's terrible. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~This one is called Evil AI. There ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~you go. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I think it's supposed to be GLaDOS, but, uh, with my voice it doesn't quite work. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~No. It's, uh, interesting, that. So what, what is this platform then that you- you're using? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, it's VoiceMod. Okay. This one's Claptrap. Well, it's Scrappy, but it sounds like Claptrap.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~So that's fun~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Well, it's about ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~At some point I should probably look at the show notes, see what we're doing tonight.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's a, it's a bit traditional, but ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, kill the music. This one's robot. Oh, that one's very monotone. Wow, listen to that. My voice is very varied right now, but you can't tell because this is all coming through as monotone~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. Kill, kill, kill the music. Oh, this is power armor. Interesting. Power ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~armor? That's- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Power armor. Um~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~But, well, I don't know if we should take a look at the community. Hang on. The-- Uh-oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. It's stuck. I can't turn the voice off. Oh, no. It's almost there. It's stuck. Oh, no~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh no, it's stuck. I can't, I can't... The, the program won't work. It's stuck. I can't turn it off. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oops.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay, that's kind of hilarious. Um How do I fix this? Hold on~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's, it's clearly just the universe saying that you need to do the rest of the, um, podcast in a, in a, in a silly voice ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, hang on. Let me- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Ah, there we go. Okay, good. Uh, it, it fixed itself. Uh, I figure we could go to the community and look for some fun stuff. Uh, is there like a, a special character that you feel fond of that you would want me to try to find in the community voices and see if it, how close it gets?~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, I guess. Well, we were watching He-Man the other day, so the new Masters of Un- Masters of the Universe film ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Let me take a look~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, while I take a look, I can, I can, uh, set up here the B1 battle droid from Star Wars. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And queue that up. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Cool. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Roger, Roger.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, wait, uh, that doesn't compute. Uh, wait, uh, you're under arrest~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay, let's see~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~See, half of it's the lines~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And the attitude. Um, I, I'm not finding it. Uh, let me see here. It might be because you can't search. Why can't you search? Where-~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Human~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh no~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, there's, there's way too many in here in the community that are just, um~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Good, bad, indifferent? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, all of the above ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Fair enough ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Um~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Try to find one that's, uh Appropriate. This one's called I Don't Know with a picture of Elmo Right. Hello? Hello?~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~That's, that's kind of odd ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~That's not Elmo. I want- No ... now I want Elmo. No. Give me an Elmo one. Uh~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~BJs? All time. All time. All time ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Am I on LinkedIn? I think I am. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Oh. What? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~No, I am. No, it's fine. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~This one's simply titled Mommy. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Oh ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh. Ah. Okay I guess ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, yeah ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's doing weird things to your video Oh, is it? Or is this video- Oh, really? That's weird Only slightly. It's very, it's just reduced the quality slightly.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's made you, it's made you a bit grainy ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, okay ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It just must be processing power~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~What if I did the whole show through an Xbox 360 microphone? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Wow, I'd prefer it if you didn't.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. Cool. Uh, where's... Okay, I'm... I'm sorry. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I can hear it. Uh, uh, this, this one's a base mic~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Okay. I, mm. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Actually, I am curious. Uh, how's town compared to the normal one? Better, worse? Uh, for comparison, here's, here's this, uh- But it's put a massive delay ... oh, okay. Here's the mic studio recording. No, don't you mute back yet. Here is the mic studio recording off. Mic,~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~mic studio recording on. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It, it sounds better on- And probably- ... and as soon as you put it on, it puts a massive delay into your, um, into your feed. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~All right~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~And now we can't hear anything at all~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~And still cutting. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~So we close that program out. Um,~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~we're- ... gonna back away slowly. We're not gonna- Slowly backing away ... we're not gonna deal with it. We're, we're done playing with fun voices for tonight. Um- Ooh, I've just- ... and we should talk about The, the preamble to the actual show So ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~YouTube have updated the UI on the guest side ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, did they? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~So now I can see...~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Well, I can only see two of them. So I can see how many people are watching the stream through my Facebook and my Twitch, but not my LinkedIn, YouTube, or ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~TikTok. I think that's, um, standard because they- Yeah ... haven't had those sort of in the past. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~But, uh, but it's interesting seeing it, that you get... You know, I can see that now on the guest side rather than, um, 'cause normally it will- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Well, very cool.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Well, hi everybody who's watching. Um, thank you for dealing with 15 minutes of, uh, preamble as, as we play with voices. Um, okay, let's, let's talk about, uh, let's preview the, tonight's show. So AI ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Again ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Again ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~But a different ti- a different view on AI this time. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I would- Yeah, well, this one- This one was actually really interesting to me.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~This one has, um... I think this will be interesting from the communication piece. Yep. So I think the, uh, the main difference here between sort of maybe what we've talked before in the past is now we are talking about the human-to-human communication, um, in these small teams as they're making decisions, specifically with the introduction of an AI agent or an AI team member into that, um, into that mix, right?~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~What happens when you bring in the, the team member. So it'll be, it'll be fun. It'll be fun. It'll be, uh, interesting to break it down and to talk, uh, through some stuff. Um- Let's see. Hang on. There was, there was something that I wanted to bring up. Uh, something, some small little something something. Uh~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Where is it? Where is it? I posted it just the other day, Barry. Where'd it go? Is it- ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Wait, which one are you posting? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I need to post the thing. I need to... Hold on Where's the thing? Here it is. Okay, I got, I got it. I got it. I got it All right~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Y'all wanna see something cool? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Always~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I'm just, I'm gonna share my screen here for a second. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Cool. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Because, uh, this is, this is cool. How do I do that though? Is it graphics? No, it's over here. Hold on. Where's edit mode? They added this new edit mode here where you can preview the thing before you send it live, which is cool, but I don't know how to do that.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Um, so we'll, we'll do it live Look at that. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah, that's cool, innit? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Isn't that cool? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I, uh- Look at that ... got my things to start sharing next week on, um- Hey, look, ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~that's us ... ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~so. It is, which is quite neat. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Now, we'll, you'll get- Yeah ... the full breakdown of this article a little later this year, and in fact, um, this article actually has a built-in future proof link for when we present this.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Um, you can see a little bit further down, and I'm gonna talk through that in just a second 'cause that's fun. You see a little bit further down here, uh, you see in, in the article itself there is a link that will be to that live episode that we are going to record that goes over this. It's very cool.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~We've planned this out so expertly. I think this is such a cool thing. Um, and for those of you who are interested in how the sausage gets made here on the show, this is our core workflow, which is, like, super cool that we have it actually documented in a paper. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Isn't that cool? Look at this. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Well, somebody who's...~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I've, I've s- basically spent the past month writing processes. Um, I just, so the, the irony of this is not lost on me whatsoever. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~This is our, uh, editorial triage model- ... for podcast topic selection. Um, but this is, this is truly what we go through every, every story that comes across our desk, uh, we, we ask is it human factors and do all that.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Again, we're gonna do the full, the full thing in, um, in October at HFES, but the, uh, the paper is live now. You can read it, um, get you a little bit of, uh, insight into how we operate here, if you want to read it in a scientific manner. It's, uh, it's open access right now, free access, so, um, please feel free to- Is that free to access, ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~do we know?~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Or is that, is this just for a limited period? ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, I am not sure if it's for a period of time or what, but I will, uh... Here's what I'll do. I'll post this in the chat For anyone who wants to take a look~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~There's that. I just thought it was very cool. We're, we're published now, um, from the, uh, the, the lab. That's I guess the first-ish lab paper- Yeah ... that we've, we've published. Of course, those in the lab have published other things, but that's the first sort of lab paper published about the podcast. We have a paper on podcasting.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I mean, that, that's cool. I don't know of any, um, other papers on po- literally on, well, on human factors podcasting. It's gotta be a first, surely. So- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~On human factors podcasting, yes. We, we've cited several other papers in this article about, uh, other podcast s- um- other podcast references, which you can trace down if you like.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Mm-hmm. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh, yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~But it's, no, it's, it's a good, it's a, a, a, a weighty and worthy, um, um, piece of writing. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~We, we put a lot of effort into that. Yeah. Uh, d- more, more than the show notes that we do every week, I would say. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I don't know. I think this week's show notes are weighty and worthy. Uh- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I think, uh, you know, I come to the show notes here, and I see that they are, um, robust and refined, and that they are well thought out, and I am super pleased.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~So, uh, thank you once again for, um, carrying my slack when I had meetings all day. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I mean, it is one of the useful things, actually, being with the, I think with the time delay, um, or the, the time, the time zone difference between us, because I can come and hit... I mean, I basically come and hit this at, what, 8:00 in the evening.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, and so I've got a massive chunk of time where I'm not at work, whereas you're battling, um, daytime. You know, you're battling work time, um, trying to get this stuff, stuff done. I've, I've had time to get home, have a bit of a chill, and then be able to come to this and, and spend the even- spend the evening in here.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~So, um, it works sort of, um, for both of us really. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~So what you're saying is that you're gonna do this every week. No, I'm not. No.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~So, but actually, I mean, to be fair, um, I think the, um, managing with, with both of us kind of, kind of works, doesn't it? 'Cause we've certainly got into a lot more of a swing of who can pick it up and let, and let's run with it. But also we've been... I guess there is a, an element as well, um, maybe it's a level of arrogance that, um, we have been doing this as a, um, as a partnership for quite a while, so we kind of know what's gonna work, work with each other.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um- Yeah, ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~And some of our best work is flying by the seat of our pants. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~That's true. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's, um- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And I, I was, um, I was talking to a colleague about this the other day, about how, um, in, in a lot of~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I- in, in a lot of different environments, I'll say professionally and here in the podcast, semi-professionally, um, in, in- ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Professional ... ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~y- the, the, the work that we do, um, covering conferences, um, I have, I tend to think about us as ones who can come in, like you just said, come into something and just, like, fly by the seat of our pants and do it.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And I do that with several, um- I, sorry. I have viewed that I do that with several things. Mm-hmm. So there's, there's a recurring meeting that happens, um, that, that, uh~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Some people would say you should probably prepare a lot for, um, but I don't do that, and I, I prepared just enough. And I think for us here on the podcast, preparing just enough is, like, the topic selection, knowing what's going to work for both of us. Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And then, and then we can literally take it from there.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~And then I was reminded that that's not winging it. That is a skill, um- Mm-hmm ... that we have, and I had to take a step back and acknowledge that, okay, we are, we are, we are actually skilled at, at that capability to take something that you have prepared, uh, just enough for And, and run with it. Because the same thing can be true.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Like we, we did heavy preparation for HFES one of those years. Do you remember that? We did like- ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~That's 'cause we did a 12-hour stint. Yeah. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~But, yeah. Yeah, ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~yeah, ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~yeah. Yes, ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~we- it was, it was a lot there and- ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Um, and, and since it's been very much like a go into it, kinda have some idea of what we're gonna do, and we've walked out of the last few years with just some really great stuff.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Um- But then a lot ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~of that is, it's... And, uh, I re- it's gotta be part of the thing tonight. It's around teamwork, isn't it? It's about understanding. 'Cause we wouldn't be able to do what we do now without the foundation of the past few years of knowing- Exactly ... what does and. So you, it's not like you could, um, go into a new element and just go straight into it and do it, because we're building on, on what we've done.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I mean, I, I've, I get involved in a quite a wide range of different things, and some of them I'm more than happy to go in and I trust myself, I trust the, w- I can get, I've got enough knowledge, preparation, whatever to, to do that, just enough work. Other elements I'll be sitting there going, "No, I need to do a lot of prep."~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, and it's almost, I th- for me, in my, in my head, it's, it's having that in, it's having the skill to understand whether you've- When to do it ... your, where, when and where to do it. Yeah, you're absolutely right. To, you know, do I need to prep or have, am I good enough to, to, to go and get a good solution? 'Cause sometimes I find if I over-prep, it's rubbish.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Um, you know, because you're, you're, you've, you've not got that ability to go off at tangents when sometimes tangents are, tangents are good. And that's true on podcasting, it's true in meetings, um, and that type of thing. Sometimes the, the tangent is the right thing. Um, and if you're too much on rails, then you, you, you become LinkedIn.~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~I'm going to, uh, I, I'm gonna do a challenge. You, you ready for the challenge? The challenge is that I'm not gonna type a single word into the show notes tonight, and it's gonna be a great show. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Okay. I like it. I'll not delete my notes then. So ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~don't delete your notes, no. Just if you happen to find one of your notes being said by me, then, uh.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Oh. Business as usual. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~All right. Well, uh, I mean, we're, we're just a few minutes out. I do, I guess, need to... Let's see here Nope, I do need to write some stuff in. Okay, challenge failed, but I, I do need to do some stuff in I was ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~gonna say, yeah, I was about to say you need to do that one. Um ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Let's see. Challenge failed, but I do need to say, uh, Eamon or, um, what is it?~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Is it out left? Yeah~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. There, there I got options maybe two more things as you so cleverly put it. Um, I guess the only other thing I would add is like my initial thoughts and maybe some talking points, but, uh, looks like we got some discussion. All right. I mean, it'll be okay. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Got some discussion notes for us to, um, have a go at all week as well.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Maybe ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~article, article link in here somewhere? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Uh, no, actually. Let me just chuck that in there~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~There you go. Put it at the top. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Syncing and ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~previewing. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Easier thing is probably, 'cause that's just to the, that, that is the, um, the paper itself~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Long hike ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Looks like it, yeah ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Don't get me wrong, it's a good paper. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Uh-huh. ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I think, I feel now that we, I, we kind of set the bar high for ourselves with the, um, with that last paper we did With the last ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~one. Mm-hmm ... ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~that we did with Angelov. So, um~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~But hey, there we go~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~The bit that I couldn't find with this... I know we're gonna go live in a second. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Oh, it's okay. We can, we can pause for a second if you need to. I mean, it's- Or we're not gonna, we're already live. Oh, no. Um. Give ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~it a minute.~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~It's just the, the, the actual mode of the AI in this, I couldn't... I can't remember what it actually said. So how was it being interacted with?~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Curious. All these new models~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. Cool~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~All right, it's uh- See you ... about the hour here. Are you ready? ~

[00:00:00] Barry Kirby: ~I, I'm totally ready. ~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: ~Okay. Uh, well, I guess I will have to be ready, too. Um, we're, we're gonna start the show, and we're gonna talk about AI and stuff, so, uh, stick around~

[00:00:00] Announcer: ~Welcome to Human Factors Cast, your weekly podcast for human factors, psychology and design~

[00:00:00] Nick Roome: Hello everybody. Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Human Factors Cast. This is episode 323. We're recording this episode live on August 20th, 2026. I'm your host Nick Rome, and I'm joined today by Mr. Barry Kirby

[00:00:17] Barry Kirby: Hi, Nick. Hi, everyone. How are you doing?

[00:00:19] Nick Roome: Uh, doing just fine, Barry. Um- Good.

[00:00:22] Barry Kirby: Please ...

[00:00:22] Nick Roome: yeah. So this week on the show, what are we talking about? We're talking about AI again. But there's a nice little, little twist to it this week looking at the impact on human-to-human communication. So I think it'll be a nice little twist on, uh, the AI pie that we so often dip our fingers into.

[00:00:42] Nick Roome: Before we get into the main show, a few exciting things. Uh, if you're attending ASPIRE this year, we, uh, have our paper accepted. It's published out now, so you can go check it out. 10 years of Human Factors podcasting. So I'll... You can, you can find the link to that in our Discord. I'll post that as an [00:01:00] official news source down there.

[00:01:01] Nick Roome: We're gonna actually talk about that article, uh, during a live HFES panel. Um, it'll be a live recording of the podcast. So if you wanna see how the sausage is made, quite literally you can come and visit us. We're gonna be presenting that Wednesday, October 21st, 4:30 to 5:30 local time. I- I'm still undecided if we're gonna do a live stream.

[00:01:23] Nick Roome: It kind of depends on the, um, the network quality, but we will at least post that episode. And we'll do a, a, a cast of it at some point. I don't know if it's going to be posted live, but it will certainly be viewable p- after that. You wanna talk about IEA?

[00:01:41] Barry Kirby: Yeah, IEA 2027. The, um, the website is live at iea2027.com.

[00:01:47] Barry Kirby: So tickets are on sale, and by strong demand there's some early bird pricing going on. So if you get your ticket before the end of October, you'll get some early bird prices, which I think given that this is an international conference, [00:02:00] it's already a good price. But the ability to get the early bird, I think it just makes a lot of sense if you know you're going to go.

[00:02:06] Barry Kirby: If you're doing papers, you need to get onto them, because papers need to be submitted by the 1st of November. And I think a lot of the time when we go to con- when we have conferences, these, these deadlines, they're pushed on a little bit and, um, they're, they're, they're extended. I have it on good authority that is not going to happen.

[00:02:25] Barry Kirby: There will be no moving of that deadline. So if you're planning on an extended deadline replan because, um, I, I, I got slightly slapped down for even suggesting that might, that it might, that even happen. So it's not gonna happen. So get yourself along to iea2027.com and get your tickets and submit your papers.

[00:02:43] Barry Kirby: Awesome. Awesome. Well- And we won't-

[00:02:46] Barry Kirby: We should get on

[00:02:46] Barry Kirby: it ... play that down. We should get on it. We should get on it. Yeah, no, we,

[00:02:49] Barry Kirby: we really should.

[00:02:50] Nick Roome: All right.

[00:02:50] Barry Kirby: All right.

[00:02:51] Nick Roome: It's that time. Let's get into the, uh-

[00:02:54] Nick Roome: Yes, let's get into the part of the show all about Human Factors News. Barry, what [00:03:00] is our story this week?

[00:03:02] Barry Kirby: So tonight we're talking about AI again, just for a change but this time not the way we usually do. So we hear a lot, and we've talked a lot too here, about AI becoming our teammate, or more formally I guess it- we call it human machine teaming.

[00:03:15] Barry Kirby: This means we're not just using AI as a tool that gives them in- gives us information, but something that, that participates in a meeting, something that contributes ideas, helps make decisions, and effectively becomes another member of the team. But if you put an AI t- A- AI into a human team, what happens to the humans?

[00:03:33] Barry Kirby: That's the question behind a paper published last month at the called The Social Cost of an AI Teammate: How an Artificial Teammate Reshapes Human-Human Communication in Small Team Decision-Making. The researchers compared teams of three humans with teams made up of two humans and an AI. They gave them high-stakes decision-making problem, and analyzed not just what decisions they made, but how the team actually communicated.

[00:03:57] Barry Kirby: I'm not entirely what, sure what we would [00:04:00] expect, but the AI certainly got involved. It ended up being the most talkative member of every AI team. But does that quality, uh, does that quantity mean quality? Well, it would seem not, because despite talking the most, its contributions contained the least new information, and had the lowest information density.

[00:04:19] Barry Kirby: And I'm, I guess I'm sure we've all been in one of those meetings even without AI. However, the interesting bit here from a human factors perspective is that the researcher found that the AI changed the way the humans interacted with each other. People responded less to their human teammates, had less influence on one another, and reported feeling a lower sense of belonging and status within the team.

[00:04:40] Barry Kirby: The more dominant the AI became in the conversation, the less valued the humans felt. So this turns our usual problem that we talk about on a regular basis kind of on its head, because we are currently rushing into this AI... rushing AI into workspaces, into military teams, and into healthcare, education, decision support environments.

[00:04:58] Barry Kirby: And we're largely asking [00:05:00] what can the AI contribute, and what can it do better, safer, and faster? But perhaps we are neglecting a more fundamental question of what happens to the team, the human team, when we put it in there. Because an AI could improve individual task performance while simultaneously degrading communication, shared understanding, psychological safety, or team cohesion.

[00:05:20] Barry Kirby: And if that's happening, we may be optimizing the AI while accidentally making the socio-technical system worse. So Nick, does adding an AI teammate make your team better, or does it just give you another teammate who, quite frankly, never shuts up?

[00:05:36] Nick Roome: This is an interesting article for so many reasons. One of which is an experience that I had today, uh, working with an AI teammate,

[00:05:45] Nick Roome: um, that would not take direction. But I think let's talk about what the core of this article is. It's saying that as you introduce these AI teammates, unless they are properly calibrated to the team then it, [00:06:00] it actually decreases the performance of that team because you have humans not communicating with each other as much.

[00:06:06] Nick Roome: You have this, this teammate that talks more than the, the other human teammates in the same team. And I think what's interesting about that is that role sort of has existed before. Mm-hmm. Uh, I, I would view that role very much as like a, a scrum master, as somebody who's, like, trying to communicate and talk and organize between different teammates and making sure that things are smooth.

[00:06:30] Nick Roome: A, a good, a good scrum master, right? And I think, um- Unless it's actually built for that role it's putting itself in that role. And I mean, AIs like to... LLMs like to overexplain a lot, right? So I think the, um, I... You know, if, if I were to really think about it, it, this AI teammate is somebody who contributed a lot and, or sorry talked a lot, contributed not a whole [00:07:00] lot. So really, what's the difference from a real meeting?

[00:07:02] Barry Kirby: Yeah,

[00:07:02] Nick Roome: it's not good. You know, I think, um- I don't know, it does raise some really interesting questions around the role that an AI teammate plays in a larger team, and whether or not that AI teammate deserves to have the teammate role or teammate title.

[00:07:27] Nick Roome: Because the experience that I was thinking about today, which I, I will mention, um, in a little bit after these initial thoughts here, but the teammate that I mentioned, we don't call a teammate, we call it a tool. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so, the, the way that it's framed I think also might have some impacts.

[00:07:44] Nick Roome: But Barry, what are your sort of initial thoughts here? What, how do you- I- You started implementing some of, uh, AI teammates in, into your teams and-

[00:07:52] Barry Kirby: Not as such. I mean, I guess we've experimented and dabbled. But I'd be keen to chat about how you've done that, and [00:08:00] maybe we can compare and contrast some of that.

[00:08:01] Barry Kirby: I mean, the point that you made, and I, I did sort of allude to it in the, um, in the preamble around I've sat in a lot of meetings where the noisiest person in the room doesn't necessarily offer anything of value. And I wonder, actually we, we're highlighting here that the AI has got that trait, but actually is that a learned trait from the human knowledge base, where we know that if the this is not a, a new, uh, new phenomenon.

[00:08:27] Barry Kirby: Your point about the scrum master I think is very well made because how do we get, um, how do we facilitate everybody properly, including the AI? Um, fundamentally how do you tell it to shut up or to allow other people to contribute? And I don't think that's necessarily uniquely a AI problem.

[00:08:45] Barry Kirby: That is a problem within, within teams anyway. A, a good team a good leader, a good scrum master is, they embody this idea of the servant leader, that they are there to facilitate. They are to make sure... They're there to make sure that everything happens, and it's kind of [00:09:00] one of their mantras. And I think the being able to do that with the AI is a, is a real thing there.

[00:09:06] Barry Kirby: I mean, you could argue, do we care if we're gonna get rid of all the humans within the team anyway? You know, if, if in the future it's all just gonna be different AI agents talking to each other do, is, is this actually a massive problem or not? I think it, it is, 'cause I think you've still, even if you're managing a more agentic AI and into collaboration, that still needs to be managed.

[00:09:25] Barry Kirby: Every one I've used so far still has a a team lead. A team, an, an agent who's doing the leading and the, and the controlling. Um, so I think it is definitely there. But I think I, I go back to some ... I mean, I've said this on when we've talked about different AI things before. Since the ergonomics conference I went to this year and a discussion with, um, so, Professor Chris Baber from, um, University of Birmingham, um, gave a talk around, um, AI teaming and, and agents and things.

[00:09:55] Barry Kirby: And I kind of, I was being a slightly belligerent, um, when I turned [00:10:00] around and said, I know, rare for me. I kind of turned around and said, "Look, why, why are we pushing this-" human machine teaming narrative or this, this teammate narrative. Why d- why does it have to be a team member? Why isn't it just a tool?

[00:10:14] Barry Kirby: Why isn't it just something that we use, it's very useful, it's very good at getting us off a clean page. It's, it's good at contributing to things. But fundamentally, it's still not a, a team member. Why do we want it to be? And I've sort of found since I've started questioning my own narrative around this, my own beliefs around this, and then I, I'm...

[00:10:35] Barry Kirby: A lot of the papers I'm reading now are more framing in that, in that way, and this one is just the same, I think. Why are we pushing it to be a team member? And when you read the paper as well, they've basically set up this experiment to facilitate the AI to be an equal team member because it, it was a chat-based, um, I think it was an LLM that they were using.

[00:10:57] Barry Kirby: Um, and where- whereas we in a team, we [00:11:00] don't really work like that. We work on a either a f- physical basis or even even through Teams, we still work on video social cues and, and things like that. And we, we communicate in a number of different ways, not just through a single platform. So if we are h- we...

[00:11:15] Barry Kirby: It is almost not surprising that if we are lowering, if we have an entire team and we're lowering everybody down to the single communication method that the LLM has, it's not surprising that the, that the humans will feel pushed down in that, in that team because they are being forced to communicate in different ways that they wouldn't usually in order to make this one t- um, this one bit of technology be a team member.

[00:11:39] Barry Kirby: So that's a long way of going round the question of is it just a tool, which is why I'm, I'm really interested in your experience today, where you s- where you're saying that you, you treat it not as a team member, you treat it as a tool. So can you, from your perspective, can you just give us a, a very high-level description about how you include AI as [00:12:00] a, as a t- as a, as a part of the team or as, as a tool within the team?

[00:12:04] Nick Roome: Yeah. What's the- I've never considered AI a teammate. It is a tool that we all individually use and collaborate on. So one thing that has been gaining traction in our field is the use of using AI to either code up or mock up different designs. And you can do this in different ways.

[00:12:29] Nick Roome: We use Figma, others use, you know, Claude Code or w- you know, whatever else you wanna... Claude Design. There's different ways of, of tackling this, but I think at its core, the concept is the same. You have some set of requirements or user stories or whatever else that you're using to set up the bounds of a product.

[00:12:51] Nick Roome: You have some sort of concept of how you want that to be used. I myself am not a designer. I do not do like the, the [00:13:00] pixel-pushing prettiness to make something, look... but I understand systems and I understand how you know, the flow of things should go, and I, I know bad design when I see it.

[00:13:11] Nick Roome: So the way that we use it is we sort of take these, these core pieces of context, and we, we load them up into Figma Make, and then we have it apply what is called a, a kit in Figma. And at least the example that I was talking about where this has just, uh, been a completely frustrating experience, at least today and part of yesterday too.

[00:13:34] Nick Roome: I've been, like, banging my head against a wall. We've made all these changes to this design kit- I'll be- ... and in order to make some of these designs more consistent across the various, You know, it's like a design system. You apply it so that way a primary button here is a primary button there, and you can say, "Use a primary button," and it'll be the same styling across both of those interfaces, and that's not what's happening.

[00:13:56] Nick Roome: What's happening is depending on when these designs [00:14:00] were made there may be some, like, built-in other components into these things. And so when you start to put everything together, it's like hallucinating and pulling together. Like, "Oh, you want this? That doesn't exist." Yes, it does. I just pointed you to the kit.

[00:14:13] Nick Roome: Why did you not... Why, why are you not using the thing? Uh, I seriously did some blood pressure tests earlier today after it. Like, what was it? 150-something over 105. That's to give you some indication of where my blood pressure was at after the... So, like, and then, uh, after cooling down, oh, to my surprise, I'm only stage one hypertension.

[00:14:34] Nick Roome: You know- ... really the, the It's a tool. It's a frustrating tool to use in some cases. Other times it works great. But the, the way that we use it is it's like when you sit around if you were to sit around like a, a, i- in like a, a workshop or something. If you were to sit around and say, "Okay, so here's our plan for using the table saw."

[00:14:56] Nick Roome: We're gonna put the piece of wood in through this way and that way [00:15:00] it doesn't kick back at us. We're gonna use these tools to handle it. And I'm gonna have a spotter on the other side that's going to manage the piece of wood as it comes out." Like imagine woodworking if it was a team effort.

[00:15:10] Nick Roome: Or imagine, um, any, any sort of thing where you're using a tool in a collaborative space where you are all able to control different parts and aspects of it. And so one of us might enter one prompt, another one of us might enter another prompt. And it's like, come around the campfire and we all tell our stories to the campfire, and the campfire comes back with this magical thing that appears over it, you know?

[00:15:36] Nick Roome: It's like that's kind of how it has been working. It's not like the campfire is another another teammate. We are, we are making our own stories by talking with each other and saying what this thing needs, and throwing in the magical user stories and requirements that are needed to make it.

[00:15:54] Nick Roome: And then refining. And so that's at least how we've used it. And I think this is interesting because [00:16:00] from my perspective, the human-to-human communication has not changed, at least on my team. Yeah. We, you know, we still communicate in terms of what we like, what we don't like, what w- what is working, what is not working.

[00:16:12] Nick Roome: I don't feel like there's any sort of... we're all very strong-willed individuals so I don't feel like there's any like, "Oh, should we take what the AI is saying here and take it as gospel?" You know, we are always sort of critical of, of what comes back and you know, if we like it, then we're like, "Okay, we like it, but what...

[00:16:28] Nick Roome: Let's, you know, make sure that we really like it before we accept it." And so it's, it's not really changed our human-to-human communication, um, so much, but it has changed sort of the tools that we use and has changed it from that perspective. I am curious though, like, from, from the d- From the study, I mean, they, they use this, um, they use this LLM and they kind of inject it into a chat-based interface, right?

[00:16:58] Nick Roome: And I, I do [00:17:00] wonder you know, what sort of the right approach is there. It's, it sounds like they prompted it to be an actual teammate where it is trying to come forth some, con- contribute ideas. And I wonder how this communication would be facilitated better or worse if it was actually prompted in a different way, like a scrum master, would, would actually work.

[00:17:21] Nick Roome: So instead of saying something like "Hey, here's my idea," but rather, um Understand the intent behind what the humans are saying. So like, let's say somebody made a comment- Yeah. And it could be like, "Hey, Barry made this comment. Do you wanna set up a follow-up meeting with him to discuss this further?" Or, "What implications does this have for the thing that you're working on?"

[00:17:45] Nick Roome: Have it cue into those things if it hasn't detected a response to a conversation- Yeah ... to actually literally facilitate those conversations between humans, and I think that could actually be really beneficial. I'm actually quite critical of... N- now that I'm [00:18:00] thinking about it, I'm quite critical of how this was applied, but we can talk through it.

[00:18:03] Nick Roome: I was

[00:18:04] Barry Kirby: gonna say, I mean, 'cause I think the way that they've done the thing here, I think it, it gets to the almost the nodes within that communication network problem. However, um, as I said earlier, I think the way it's been implemented, 'cause it's been implemented through this chat interface, and it was basically making the AI agent a, what they term like a full member of the team.

[00:18:26] Barry Kirby: So it was there to contribute, it was there to react, and you can sort of see it that if we were just doing this through a text chat interface where... So it has got an equal opportunity to put a message onto the board, effectively into the chat because it's got equal access as anybody else. I can sort of see that, how we- how that has evolved and how the, you know, give the LLM pre-agency to read what's going on and to make input.

[00:18:51] Barry Kirby: It probably then has given itself internal drivers to say, "Well, if I'm only being useful if I'm being vocal," therefore, you know, that's probably why [00:19:00] you get the, um, almost the s- the, the less, um, the quantity rather than quality input. But if you... I mean, again, I's, I'll, I'll sort of go back and say that, you know, how that's great as an experiment, and we did experimentation like this pre-pandemic.

[00:19:17] Barry Kirby: There was a particular project, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before around, um, this, this idea called a virtual Barry, where we had a chatbot version of me one with me. You know, the idea was that I was doing a live, I was alive, and then there was a a, a software-built version of me.

[00:19:33] Barry Kirby: I was sort of... It i- it's what we would now have as an AI chatbot, but it was just like pre that. And the idea was could you tell the difference between the two, and be... To get away from the idea of, you know, you can clearly tell this is me because I've got my mannerisms, the way I speak, and things like that.

[00:19:48] Barry Kirby: It was all through a text interface, so it sort of cheated to a certain extent. You sort of took out a whole level of interaction thing because when we work in a team the cues that we have if you tried to do [00:20:00] that in a what I would consider a real live environment, um, and the way I've tried it before is have people sat around the table, one person there as the LLM scribe and all that is, is as things are going on, they are informing the LLM, typing into the, into the laptop what's going on.

[00:20:18] Barry Kirby: And then at certain points we, when you go around the table and ask for input, we would then ask the LLM what input do you have based on what you know? Now, there was a few issues with that. Um, obviously it's, it, the, uh, the scribe has to type really quickly because if they don't or be able to have that, um, ability to shorten what, what is going on in a way that doesn't degrade away from the conversation.

[00:20:43] Barry Kirby: And so the... Once you, once you got that set up and you could hear somebody doing, sort of the whole typing thing like crazy and it was distracting and, and this, that, and the other, um, it did provide a sort of output that was useful. Now, I think the reason that that sort, that... And it, it was [00:21:00] useful. The, and the reason it was because I think we were still using prompts.

[00:21:03] Barry Kirby: We were still turning around and saying, "Right, this is information, this is information, this is information. What do you now think?" So we were giving it that, um, as you would in a social construct, we were bringing it in like a, um, 'cause I, I, I was basically doing that scrum master role. And we were bringing it as a member.

[00:21:17] Barry Kirby: And I think that's why it was sort of successful. But it still felt really clunky because you were having to make that happen. And then also the person who was scribing, also we wanted their input as well. So we, you know, because they were an HF person and that type of thing. So I think the only way that this gets true credence is surely when we use technology sort of, sort of to give it voice recognition and the ability for it to then autonomously inject its opinion into the conversation, to which point it's gotta understand social cues, it's gotta understand, uh, waiting till a gap in the, um, gap in the conversation or making, you know, or meeting etiquette and that type of thing.

[00:21:58] Barry Kirby: So I think [00:22:00] I, I, I like, I like the understanding of what this paper delivers. I still think it's very orchestrated. It's, it's very um, artificial at the

[00:22:10] Nick Roome: moment. Well let- let's get, let's get philosophical for a minute here because I'm, I'm wondering where is that boundary of having an AI be a contributor or something that augments a team versus a full-on teammate to either, uh, interact with or replace a, a human counterpart?

[00:22:36] Nick Roome: You know, what i- what is the line?

[00:22:40] Barry Kirby: Yeah, I mean, for me I mean, this gets to a, a... But, I mean, the, for the biggest question for me in this whole AI que- thing now is around allocation of function where we turn around and say, "Is this a, something that the human should be doing, or is this the something that AI autonomy or whatever should be doing?"

[00:22:56] Barry Kirby: And nobody can truly agree on the right [00:23:00] methodology for doing that type of activity. And in here, again, we, we're saying it is the... Is this idea of a, of a true, fully, uh, fully functional team member, is that the right role for AI? You've gone, the the p- what you've described, the way you use them is very much the tool piece at the, at the, almost the, the other end of that chain.

[00:23:19] Barry Kirby: It's very prescribed. You're telling it what to do, telling it to go away and do it, and then you're bringing the result back to the team, um, saying what, saying what's happened. I've sort of gone through a slight midway, so it's, uh, it can provide input, but it's still not a full team member. It's, but, uh, it's almost that, that des- described piece of ask it questions at the, the appropriate time.

[00:23:37] Barry Kirby: Use it for the skills it's good for, retrieval of facts and, and things like that. Perhaps it can sum up what's been said so far, which I think is k- is actually a useful thing it can do. But is this allocation of function and this constant drive, this constant push to say it should be a, a full teammate, it should be a a, an equal member of the team.

[00:23:55] Barry Kirby: I, I just, I just think it's nonsense. And, and, and even when, [00:24:00] even if you were to get a fully, a really good robotic humanoid thing sat at the meeting table with you, I still think it would be a tool, not a full team member, and I think we should step back from it.

[00:24:13] Nick Roome: I do wonder, and I bet you our friends over at the Human AI Robot Teaming technical group, I bet they would have a lot to say about this.

[00:24:21] Nick Roome: But I'm, I'm wondering, you know, the, the term teammate, and calling- Oh ... an, an AI agent or an AI a teammate, does that change human behavior enough to actually have that be considered a design intervention, a design consideration for how we incorporate these into our teams, right? Is calling it a teammate enough of a change that it will alter our perception of the thing you know, a tool versus teammate?

[00:24:51] Barry Kirby: I... There's definitely something there. I mean, notwithstanding everything I've just ranted about saying that we should stop calling it a teammate, I, I, I guess I'm [00:25:00] under no i- no illusion that in 20, 30 years' time, um, LLMs and, and other associated AI, uh, technologies will have got quicker and faster.

[00:25:11] Barry Kirby: And the, and the in- It's more about the interfaces. It's more about the conversational, um, AI, um, interface. It's about the, more the cues that it picks up and the senses that it gets. So it's not just about the agent itself, it's about the, um, the mode that it's in will make it a lot closer to what it is to, to could be a a participant within a team.

[00:25:33] Barry Kirby: The technologies will catch up. But, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm... I still, I... You gotta ask, ask yourself the question why, and I still think we're in a rush. It... As the article said, we're in a rush to do it. I'm just not... i'm, I'm now skeptical about what is our own agenda in doing so apart from the fact it's cool.

[00:25:53] Barry Kirby: And you know me we like cool tech. We like cool gadgets and stuff like that. And the way that ChatGPT's come on in [00:26:00] just the past couple of years you use it so much more. So we, we, In fact Amanda and I were, today we're having a conversation about do you use, are you an AI first or an AI second person?

[00:26:10] Barry Kirby: Do you, if you've got a blank sheet of paper and you need, you want to get something on it, be a, a, a summary report or, or so- or whatever Do you use ChatGPT first to feed it some of the information and give you a first scrub you can then go in and then edit and, and mess about with? Or do you start with a blank sheet of paper, write out all of your thoughts, and then use Copilot to then help you develop your thinking and stuff like that?

[00:26:40] Barry Kirby: So are you a a pre or a post-AI person about how you use that within your workflow? But that's still, it's still within your workflow. It's not, um, it's still not a team member. And I think the way that we, different people want to use these different tools is gonna evolve as you get used to them and you'll find the best way of engaging with [00:27:00] them.

[00:27:01] Nick Roome: One, one thing that I'm thinking about too is that somebody somewhere had to write the system-level prompt that, that basically gave this AI instructions.

[00:27:12] Nick Roome: Is that person then an additional member of the team? Was it somebody on the team who gave it that prompt? And so, you know, how much, how much sway does that person have over the team?

[00:27:24] Nick Roome: Is, are they sort of this invisible authority that is manifesting itself through the AI and the AI's responses because you're, that person is the one that prompted it? You know, it, it really does introduce a lot of different, consideration. I think ethical concerns too, when you think about, like, who's actually writing this system-level prompt and what their intent is and what their what their motivations are for doing so.

[00:27:53] Nick Roome: I don't know, it just goes a long way

[00:27:57] Barry Kirby: I guess the, another consideration here is [00:28:00] the, when you look at the paper and the type of team it developed, it was a, um, students coming together, doing a short mission critical task. Um, so it was around a search and rescue type exercise. And it was about 20 minutes long.

[00:28:15] Barry Kirby: Um, so quite a short period of time, though I bet it felt really long when they were in it. That's a different team to say the team you've described. Um, y- you know, you, you mentioned earlier your, you know, your team wouldn't take any nonsense from anybody else. You, you're all very forthright with each other.

[00:28:29] Barry Kirby: You, you know how, you know each other's strengths and weaknesses. Um, I'd like to think my team is similar. A military team is gonna be the same. A a surgical team, and, and any of them sort of teams that have got longevity around them. You've gone through that element of the forming, storming, norming, performing process and y- you're pretty well gelled.

[00:28:48] Barry Kirby: If you put an AI into a well-established team, how does that work? Which I think is, uh, th- there's a lot of social ta- social dynamics there to understand how that, [00:29:00] how, how do you get if you've got this AI agent there, how, what steps would we need to go through to get the agent to be accepted anywhere near a team member?

[00:29:11] Barry Kirby: You know, th- there's gotta be a whole lot of other stuff there that we just haven't considered in that team building. 'Cause you're, you're, you're basically rebuilding the team from that point, aren't you? So how do you, how do you make that piece work? It's gonna be difficult.

[00:29:23] Nick Roome: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Barry Kirby: Yeah.

[00:29:25] Nick Roome: I mean, other, other difficult questions to answer are, like, what, what happens if you introduce an AI into the team and it, it's actually increasing whatever metric that you're tracking for productivity.

[00:29:38] Nick Roome: But other- Yeah ... other metrics go down, like job satisfaction or you know, morale or those types of things. You know, uh, is it, is it considered a success if productivity goes up but the other ones don't? And then also, you know, who's kind of getting back to your point, you know, what's, what's the motive for this?

[00:29:56] Nick Roome: Is this just a outright get rid of humans in those roles [00:30:00] depending on the context? You know, is it, if you're replacing one person of a three-person team is it gonna do more harm than good and in the long run, if, even if they can do the job, you know, like, I don't know. So many cans of worms.

[00:30:17] Barry Kirby: Yeah, it's, it's a weird thing, isn't it? Because the everyone loves, I mean, in business when you do this, so everybody loves a good KPI. And therefore what, you know, what is important, it's, it's- It's all very good, the, the AI doing, um, you know, we traditionally mea- measure any sort of system on the speed or task delivery or whatever it is.

[00:30:37] Barry Kirby: But here we need to st- do we need to start measuring team effectiveness and actually get almost going down one layer below and better monitoring team dynamics? And therefore, how do you measure team dynamics? Is it you know, in, in typical, like, sort of a comms mapping or something like y- you'd look at the communication channels and the number of messages across a channel and the meaningfulness of message, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:30:59] Barry Kirby: Can we do [00:31:00] that on, with the AI as well? Which there's no reason why we shouldn't. But how do we, uh, then do that? But but there's another niggle with that because both of us have had really good examples of ... well, we haven't said the examples because it'd probably be embarrassing to the person involved, but we've h- we've highlighted that we've both been in meetings where you've got the, a, a, a normal person being this, what the AI was ex- the behaviors that the AI exhibited in this in this scenario, i.e. Quantity over quality of interaction. So you could argue, are we over-focusing d- devil's advocate slightly. Are we over-focusing on the AI just because it's the AI? We don't go and really point out in such clarity that actually this person over here, I'll call them Bob Bob is really loud and verbose and likes the sound of, sound of their own voice.

[00:31:53] Barry Kirby: Let's put it down to an insecurity because they realize they've got nothing to say, so they just say something really loud. We don't go and take them to task [00:32:00] in the same way that we are now taking the AI to task. So it's something I know we've talked about in the past is, are we measuring apples with apples?

[00:32:07] Barry Kirby: We're probably not. But I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing really. I think we've just got to acknowledge it. It's, it's almost an ethical question, as you, as you said earlier. Um-

[00:32:16] Nick Roome: You know, some things that I think that are worth bringing up here especially given that we work in a communications lab I think the, uh, the important things to remember here, especially when it comes to communication, is that communication Really includes the act of knowing when to back down or when to be quiet.

[00:32:39] Nick Roome: Yep. And I think whatever AI system is implemented as a, quote-unquote, "teammate," uh, I think that is important to consider, right? It's the, it's... Communication is basically this, this concept of building a shared understanding or shared meaning between everybody that's involved, [00:33:00] and I think more messages from an AI does not equal more communication.

[00:33:05] Nick Roome: We can- Mm-hmm ... we can, we can say you're, you're like over-communicating. To be over-communicating means you are not effectively communicating, and so more messages doesn't equal better communication. I think we'd really need to look at, like this is my communication brain going, what is really happening here?"

[00:33:24] Nick Roome: It lives really within the quality of the messages that are being sent and not the quantity of the messages. And also sort of the, um, when you, when you look at that quality, kind of along the lines of what I was saying earlier, can you facilitate conversation between where it really matters? Whi- which in this case would be the human, the humans in this loop.

[00:33:46] Nick Roome: So I don't know. I think, um... I

[00:33:49] Barry Kirby: guess I, there's-

[00:33:50] Barry Kirby: Communication is hard, right? When you sit in a room of people and we bo- we've both been facilitators, we've both been, uh, scrum masters. We, [00:34:00] so we've both led teams where you can have somebody who is loud, somebody who is quiet somebody, somebody who you know is just gagging to say something, but you need to give them the tap on the shoulder to say, "You can contribute.

[00:34:14] Barry Kirby: Come on. We wanna hear what you've gotta say." But they need that invite into the conversation. And a lot of this isn't, A lot of this isn't written down. N- we don't all come with instruction books about how we best interact. So we learn through that, that engagement. And so you know that if I'm working with Mary, if I'm working with Steve or, or whoever because of my previous interactions with them, I know that Steve w- is happy to give his conversation and, but he won't say anything unless he feels he's got something to say.

[00:34:45] Barry Kirby: Great. So I know I don't have to worry about Steve too much. I know he's gonna pop up when he needs to. Mary's going to be amazing and tell me everything that, that she wants to know, and she will probably be very animated about what she's doing. Uh, but again, Bob over here is not going to be...

[00:34:59] Barry Kirby: bob needs to [00:35:00] be encouraged and, and stuff like that. And somebody else maybe needs honed down a bit. And so you, you do all this. When you bring in the AI, it, it, how do we how do... we're gonna have to have some sort of processes in place to understand how to not only manage that from a facilitator point of view, but how do we get the AI to understand that it needs to recognize the characters in the room?

[00:35:23] Barry Kirby: It needs to learn that and I'm not... Well, I've not heard of any work that's going on about understanding or like getting an L- an L- LLM to be present in the room as opposed to anything else. Every- everything has just been about the, about largely text-based input. So for me, that, that would be a, a next step for me, is if this is gonna be, if this is gonna happen, it's, it's everybody's pushing for it, everybody's driving for it.

[00:35:54] Barry Kirby: So how do we get it to be a, an, um, an [00:36:00] empathetic and understanding member of the team? Before it starts contributing, how do we get it so it can sit in the r- sit in the room virtually or otherwise and be able to under- almost map and understand people? Um, 'cause if it can do that, I mean, crikey, that'll solve an awful lot of problems.

[00:36:16] Barry Kirby: I mean, we are only, I think we are still just chipping away at the tip of the iceberg in understanding or accepting neurodivergence or neurodiversity and the breadth of w- the, the way people think and how we recognize their skills and things like that. So I think this, the, this whole AI teammate thing might actually be quite, um, a good catalyst for us understanding and appreciating the differences in people, um, and, and what that does.

[00:36:43] Barry Kirby: So it's a slight ramble, but I sort of started from one bit and ended up realizing I w- I, I've just got something in my, my own head around neurodiv- uh, neurodivergent understanding and how would an A- AI even comprehend that. So yeah.

[00:36:57] Nick Roome: Yeah, as you were talking I'm gonna s- [00:37:00] I'm gonna say something slightly controversial for our field.

[00:37:03] Barry Kirby: Ooh, let's do it. I'm excited.

[00:37:06] Nick Roome: And this is actually brought up in the article by the authors, so this is not an original thought, but one that is, is echoed for sure. Do wonder if the trust component in AI systems or automated systems might be over over studied or over thought about. I think it's an important one, but we always come back to in human factors, the trust in the AI system when really I would along, along the lines of some of the earlier communication ramble I think the, the communication piece might actually be more important here.

[00:37:44] Nick Roome: When w- what happens when you do have sort of a trustworthy, uh- Oh ... agent or AI, I think what happens then is you get this, the, the opposite of engagement. You get humans to disengage from, from the conversation that they have with each [00:38:00] other because they, they trust the AI to have the right answer.

[00:38:04] Nick Roome: Yes. And so, so it almost, like, a- negatively impacts the communication piece that we have. I think trust is widely studied, but I don't, I don't know that the other half of it is studied nearly as much. It's- What happens when you trust something, then you start ceding some of your some of your communications that you're having with your, with your human teammates to the AI itself.

[00:38:26] Nick Roome: I don't know. It, it, it's something that I'm thinking about, and maybe there's opportunity there in the field to study it.

[00:38:33] Barry Kirby: I think there definitely is. I mean, it's, it's definitely interesting, isn't it? Where you look at if certain people in the room say something, you're willing to go back and say, "Really?

[00:38:42] Barry Kirby: Is that the case? Do you really think that's right?" Or, "I'd like to challenge you," or, or whatever. But the, that predisposition for us to trust not only AI, but, uh, um, almost any user interface that we get, we assume that anything it's presenting us is, is the truth. Uh, we, we go [00:39:00] all the way back to fighter pilots.

[00:39:02] Barry Kirby: You know, once they give them, like, sort of digital displays and lots of information, one of the biggest threats to them is to be heads down so much and not actually heads out of the air- aircraft, looking for live, real threats in the sky around them. Um, they get they get too focused on what's in f- on the displays, and especially if that d- the display might be showing wrong information.

[00:39:23] Barry Kirby: So if we do, the, they sort of, uh ... The, this paper alludes to the similar sort of thing, that as soon as the AI said something, it's taken as fact. Um, nobody challenges it, and that's a problem. Because I d- I don't know if you do this, but I sometimes do it. I j- I try and, I try and generate conversation, particularly in a workshop scenario.

[00:39:44] Barry Kirby: I do try and throw in a what I, I consider is a radical thought or a radical idea, really to ... It'll be some sort of ridiculous statement, um, just to get people to challenge. But pe- get people to feel comfortable with saying, "Oh, that's ridiculous," or, "That's wrong," [00:40:00] or ... throw something in there to get to, get sort of

[00:40:02] Barry Kirby: I mean, I do it in workshops as well now pre- I will set it up beforehand where I will turn round and challenge somebody to say, "No, no, I think what you're doing is rubbish." Um, or better words than that, but do that and then get them to respond and say, "Oh, well, I see what you're saying." That, to show other people that it can be done, and it's nobody is above nobody's above, above challenge.

[00:40:22] Barry Kirby: But if the AI's gonna come out and say something, if it tries to challenge what we're doing, and everybody just goes, "Yeah, okay. It's, it's obviously true 'cause, Alistair the AI has said so, then, um, yeah, you, you sort of lose, lose a lot of value that way. And he can't, again, he can't be a, a true team member 'cause y- you're giving it too much weight rather than too little.

[00:40:43] Barry Kirby: Scary times.

[00:40:44] Nick Roome: Yeah.

[00:40:45] Barry Kirby: Yeah.

[00:40:46] Nick Roome: I don't know how much else we have to say about this. I feel like I'm tapped out here. But communication is key.

[00:40:53] Barry Kirby: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:40:54] Nick Roome: Okay. Uh, any, any closing thoughts on, uh, on this story here, [00:41:00] Barry?

[00:41:01] Barry Kirby: I think, yeah it's an interesting paper. I think it's a bit limited.

[00:41:03] Barry Kirby: You know, small number of teams, but it certainly raises a question we've never touched on before around the, the, the human-human part of, of teaming and the impact on, on the human co- communications. So it's definitely something to watch and see where it goes in the future.

[00:41:21] Nick Roome: All right. Thank you to our friends over at Archive for grabbing this story.

[00:41:25] Nick Roome: And, uh, if you wanna follow along, we do post the links to all the original articles in our Discord, where you can join us for the discussion on this story and many more. We're gonna take a quick break, and we'll be back to see, uh... You know what? Let's take some it came froms. We'll be back to see what's in the human factors community right after this

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[00:41:43] Nick Roome: Yes, huge thank you to all of our patrons and all the donate do- donors to the Human Factors Cast Foundation. Uh, truly, really appreciate your help. Your help and support really make this show, as well as all the other ongoing efforts that we have possible. [00:42:00] So, support for this program and, uh, other stuff that we work on is due to listeners like you.

[00:42:07] Nick Roome: We do the PBS model, so, uh, if you have it in your heart and your wallet to donate please please do. And if you don't have it in your wallet, we... You can support us in other ways. But, uh, but thank you to those who, who, uh, who do. All right, it's been a while since we've done this one, so why don't we go ahead and get into it?

[00:42:26] Nick Roome: It came from-

[00:42:27] Nick Roome: All right. Well, it's been a minute since we've done It Came From y- and, and, and that's because we've had other stuff. But let's do this one here. This one was posted on the Human Factors subreddit by Puzzleheaded-Pay1524. They ask about the future of human factors. There's a lot of preamble here.

[00:42:45] Nick Roome: Curious about the job market. UX/UI as a whole oversaturated in entry level. HF as academia. Curious about a few points. So there's three questions here. One, are you noticing a measurable increase in applicants transitioning from [00:43:00] UX or UI? Two, are you noticing a measurable increase in class sizes or applicants for human factors programs?

[00:43:08] Nick Roome: And three, what are your thoughts on the future of human factors ergonomics from, in terms of job security, especially regarding medical and nuclear industries? I don't know if we can answer the specific industry questions, Barry, but what are your thoughts on, on these three questions? Increase in applicants from UX and UI, the human factors programs, if you have any insight there, and then the future of the field.

[00:43:30] Barry Kirby: So I guess the increased applicants transitioning I don't... Not necessarily transitioning, but definitely there is more collaboration, I would say, between UX/UI and, and HF. There's perhaps a better recognition, though still nowhere near enough as far as I'm concerned, that, um, we are dabbling in the same pond.

[00:43:52] Barry Kirby: But then there were some really good presentations and discussions I've had with the likes of Amanda Widdowson here in the UK, um, who highlights the diff- you know, [00:44:00] some of the things in the UX/UI field that, um, are not in in that. So I d- I'm not seeing as much transitioning i- in the formal sense, but definitely overlap and things like that.

[00:44:12] Barry Kirby: Class sizes in the UK, it's difficult because I think we, we've basically, we don't have any bachelor's degrees anymore, so, undergraduate degrees for human factors. There's still modules and stuff like that around, so, uh, we've seen, I guess you could say that we've seen an overall decrease over the years because it's nonexistent.

[00:44:32] Barry Kirby: Master's degrees is growing. I think this year I've seen two more master's courses come online in the UK. So, so the, if, to, to which my logic, if the, if the universities are able to satisfy themselves that there is demand, then that must mean that there is the class sizes there. Otherwise the universities nowadays definitely wouldn't be doing it.

[00:44:50] Barry Kirby: In terms of job security, I'm not, not really, um, cognisant of the medical domain, but how nuclear and other safe critic- safe critical industries there is loads of [00:45:00] jobs out there. Um, and I think if you can get, certainly if you're in the safety critical world, if you can get in and around that particularly as like one of the teams then, you know, job security I think is pretty good.

[00:45:10] Barry Kirby: I think it's more solid in HFE than it is in UX/UI. I'm seeing a lot of, a lot more redundancies in the UX/UI field than HF. But it could also be that the UX/UI domain has gone through, which we've referred to it before as it's seen as quite, quite sexy, quite modern and, and all that sort of stuff, and I think quite trendy.

[00:45:29] Barry Kirby: And I think perhaps that trend is the, the glean is coming off it a bit now. It's become- it is more mainstream. And so it is, it's perhaps, yeah, just not as sexy as it was. So I think there is, um, less people. There's still comparatively more, but there's less people going into that in as a thing.

[00:45:46] Barry Kirby: I think, um, I think HV is possibly slightly more job secure than others. Ro, Unique what's your p- perceptions on these?

[00:45:55] Nick Roome: Sure. So let's, let's tackle the first one first here. Uh, the applicants transitioning [00:46:00] from UX and UI. I wouldn't say that I've seen like a surge of UX/UI folks but I've seen some.

[00:46:09] Nick Roome: I think what's interesting is that you have folks from a variety of different backgrounds applying to, uh, the types of roles that, that might be human factors or human factors adjacent. And I think one thing that is a common thread is that you'll get a wide variety of applicants, some with human factors backgrounds, some with cognitive science backgrounds, some with design backgrounds.

[00:46:38] Nick Roome: And I think the interesting thing that sets them apart is not necessarily their background, but how they approach problem-solving. And so that I think is probably the most important thing to look out for there not necessarily which, which background or field they come from. In terms of class size applicants for human factors programs, I don't have any particular insight into that, but I [00:47:00] will invite you to come to our Discord community.

[00:47:02] Nick Roome: I know a lot of folks are in academia and could potentially provide some answers on that one. And then in terms of thoughts on the future of human factors and ergonomics I think we have a very interesting position, especially with AI being as big as it is right now. There's a lot of work for us to do There's a lot of work for us to do.

[00:47:28] Nick Roome: There's a lot of things for us to figure out in terms of how AI may be able to be used in these various domains across various contexts. You know, whether or not you like studying AI or working with AI, it's here and it's being shoehorned into a lot of different products. But that means that there's a lot of opportunities for us to try to solve.

[00:47:51] Nick Roome: And so I think that's the good news, is that there is a lot of problems to solve with something like this. And to me, that reads as [00:48:00] job security Did we do it? Did we answer the question?

[00:48:05] Barry Kirby: I think so. I think, I think, I think we're good now. It feels like it's w- it, it has been a long time since we've done these, isn't it?

[00:48:10] Nick Roome: Yeah. So...

[00:48:11] Barry Kirby: Though I have missed the intro the intro jingle. I,

[00:48:14] Nick Roome: I- It took a second for it to load. I feel like it was just like- Yeah ... pulling it from the depths of the- Yeah ... the archives or something. All right. Well, why don't we get into one more thing? This needs no introduction. There's no, no little jingle here.

[00:48:25] Nick Roome: It's just where we talk about one more thing. What's your one more thing this week, Barry?

[00:48:28] Barry Kirby: So as I think I mentioned a few episodes ago Amanda, my wife, completed her master's in human factors, where we were very, um, celebratory, and that was awesome. However, she didn't go to a graduation, and I was in two minds about this because I was very much of the thinking that that's her moment.

[00:48:46] Barry Kirby: She should go and grab that, um, certificate and you know, have her moment on the stage of what she's doing. But she didn't want to do that. She sh- Her thinking was, because it was a complete distance course, um, that she [00:49:00] did, um, it was completely remote, so she didn't really engage with any of the other students on the course.

[00:49:04] Barry Kirby: It was very much of, um, her slog through it. So it's not like you're gonna get together with other course mates and celebrate going through it. And so she didn't want to go. So, and Amanda's one of these people, if she makes a decision, that, that's what's happening, and we, we don't argue with that.

[00:49:18] Barry Kirby: However, we couldn't let her get away with not celebrating, so we had ourselves a a, a graduation at home, um, which was fun. We had... We got family and friends around. So not a big event w- at all. I couldn't resist going onto, um, Amazon, buying her a gown and mortar board, so which she had to wear through the thing.

[00:49:36] Barry Kirby: And, um, and there was speeches, and there was, um, there was a, there, there was alcohol and things like that. So, yeah, we would just... We... It was a really nice time to reflect that she'd, she'd done the work. She spent th- was it three and a half, four years getting her MSC, but also appreciating the fact that through that time she'd seen our eldest through university, um, middle child through A levels, our youngest through his GCSEs, uh, various [00:50:00] illnesses, uh, within the family and all this sort of stuff.

[00:50:02] Barry Kirby: So it wasn't just doing the MSC, it was running a business. It was delivering on projects as well. I've gotten still now no idea how she delivered it, but we were very proud. So it was a great day

[00:50:13] Nick Roome: I've I've only talked with Amanda, I think maybe once or twice, and it has been, like, while she's been in the background.

[00:50:21] Barry Kirby: Yeah.

[00:50:21] Nick Roome: I'm, I'm very proud of Amanda too, and I don't know how much that- ... how far that goes. You can tell her that. Great job, Amanda. This is awesome. And, uh, I'm glad you had, had a celebration for it. That's awesome.

[00:50:34] Barry Kirby: So Nick, what, what about you? What's your, what's your one more thing?

[00:50:36] Nick Roome: I could go with the classic Barry and do two more things.

[00:50:39] Nick Roome: But I'm gonna stick with just one more thing 'cause I don't have enough experience with the other thing yet. So the thing that I have is that Google Chrome recently did an update where you can put the tabs on the left-hand side instead of across the top, and this has been something that I've been wanting to try.

[00:50:56] Nick Roome: There's several internet browsers that do this. But this is the [00:51:00] first time I've seen it in Chrome. I know there's extensions that would do it, but this is built natively now into it. And I'm, I'm really trying to adopt the left side the left side navigation for the tabs, and I like it.

[00:51:13] Nick Roome: It allows me to close things that I maybe previously would've been hesitant to close because they were this small and I couldn't read the text that, oh, I wanna close that tab. And for somebody like me who has, like, millions and millions of tabs up, this actually makes it very manageable because I can just extend the sidebar and say-

[00:51:32] Nick Roome: "Oh, I don't need that tab open. Close it." And then it actually helps me manage these things a lot better in my mind. So I don't know. If you're, like, looking for a, a, maybe a change in how you, how you browse the internet and have all your tools set up, then maybe take a look at left-hand, uh, navigation tabs.

[00:51:50] Barry Kirby: I've just done it. That's weird.

[00:51:54] Nick Roome: It takes some getting used to, but it's, um, you know, I, I've been playing with this for about a week [00:52:00] now. And I'm, I think I'm used to it. It's actually quite, quite nice.

[00:52:06] Barry Kirby: I, I, I will... i'm not... I'm gonna have to switch it back for now. Um, and I'm gonna have to-

[00:52:11] Barry Kirby: hang myself, I think, for the, um, for the idea. But you could... Yes, good, 'cause it'll give you a complete s- Yeah, okay.

[00:52:17] Nick Roome: Yeah, it gives you the whole thing. Oh. You can, you can expand it so you can see even more of the tab if you need to. Like, it's, I don't know, it's nice, and you can tuck it away if you don't need it.

[00:52:25] Nick Roome: You can have groups of tabs. I don't know, it's, it's all nice. It's all nice.

[00:52:31] Barry Kirby: We'll, we'll, we'll experiment that over the next few weeks, then next time we get together- ... then we'll, um, we can compare and contrast.

[00:52:37] Nick Roome: Sure thing. Sure thing. All right. Well, that's it for today's ep- everyone.

[00:52:41] Nick Roome: Uh, if, if you liked this episode and you enjoy some of the discussion about AI, uh, we got a whole, whole bunch of other episodes about AI in the backlog. Go pick your poison. Comment with wherever you're listening with what you think of the story this week. I thought it was a good one. Have you worked with AI teammates?

[00:52:56] Nick Roome: Are you on a team with an AI coworker? Uh, do you [00:53:00] work for an AI? I don't know. Let us know. Curious on, on your perspective there. For more in-depth discussion, you can always join us on our Discord community. Uh, like I said, all, all the original articles are posted there, and we, we can talk about much more.

[00:53:15] Nick Roome: Right now there's conversation about AI in, in the chat. So you can go over there and check that out. Visit our official website, sign up for our newsletter, stay up to date with all the latest in Human Factors news. If you like what you hear, you wanna support the show, I mentioned it earlier- Yeah

[00:53:29] Nick Roome: we follow the PBS model, so you can leave us a five-star review. That is free for you to do and helps the show out. If you have the desire to, you can tell your friends about us. That word of mouth helps us grow. You can tell 'em about the Human Factors Cast Foundation and the mission of science communication in the field of human factors.

[00:53:46] Nick Roome: Or if you have financial means to, you can consider supporting us on Patreon or any of our other donation platforms to help keep the mission of science communication in human factors alive. And as always, links to all of our socials and our [00:54:00] website are in the description of this episode. Mr. Barry Kirby, thank you for being on the show today.

[00:54:04] Nick Roome: Where can our listeners go and find you if they want to talk about AI teammates?

[00:54:09] Barry Kirby: Well, if you want to do that, you can come and find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, all them sort of things. Not the, the, the cross social network. Um, but if you also want to come and listen to me interview cool people in the world of, uh, human factors, you can find me on the 1202 Human Factors podcast, which is 1202pod.com.

[00:54:26] Nick Roome: As for me, I've been your host, Nick Rome. You can find me on our Discord and across social media at Nick_Rome. Thanks again for tuning into Human Factors Cast. Until next time, it depends. ~See how fast I was with it this time. I'm so proud ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. Music and everything, that was cool. ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Um, I am surprised... Oh, really quick heads up, uh, we're gonna do a quick, quick post-show today.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~We got some stuff going on, um, that is preventing us from doing the full 30 minutes, so we're gonna probably drop in about five minutes from now. Um, but I am absolutely floored, Barry, that you did not mention for your one more thing... Actually, I'm, I'm glad you brought up Amanda's success because that's really great, and maybe you were saving it for next time, but you did not bring up that nice little pot that you made that I saw you post on social media.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~That's true. That's 'cause it's still work in progress. ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Okay. ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Um, so it's actually, it's in the kiln as we speak. ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Oh, ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~is it? Uh, it's, it's going through its first firing. But it's, um, it was interesting to make. So I think what I'm trying to do is, is kind of pull together a, um, a bunch of different things that just show bad ergonomics.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~And obviously, um, so what you're, uh, referring to for those who are watching is, um, on the front of, um, Don Norman's book, um, The Design of Everyday Things, there is a, a teapot, a bright red teapot that has the spout coming out over the handle. So it's bli- basically not usable as, as, as, uh, as, as nature intended.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Um, and so I sort of set myself the mini challenge, could I recreate that, um, in my newfound, um, um, pottery journey? And so I finally... I've, I've, having gone over it in my head numerous times over the past, like, months, um, I was like, "Right, I'm just gonna give it a go. It's gonna be the first go, and I won't get it right.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Um, but I'll give it, give it a shot." And, um, yeah, for the first attempt, it hasn't come out too... It's not... There's still, uh, for... I, I still need to create a new one, I think, 'cause I, A, I'd like it to be bigger, um, 'cause I want it to be a statement piece. Um, but also there is, there's some elements in it that, that, that I'm not quite happy with.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~But fundamentally, as a first shot, I, I, I was, I was quite pleased with myself. Um, so we're going to... 'Cause I, the original idea was to throw it away, um, but I think I am gonna glaze it, and, um, and see if I can get all the colors right and stuff as well, so. Ooh. Um, but yeah, it's cool. Um, so I'm, I might bring it in live if it's fi- if it's finished, and, and, and it works.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~It was suggested that I'm, I, we should use it as a, um, as a trophy for one of the awards at, uh, the, the CHF awards- ... coming up. I was like, "I think, I think, I think we're possibly going a bit far." Um, it's not bad, but it's not good. So- All ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~right. So you- So- You mentioned that you were planning to do, like, a everything about bad ergonomics in a, a pottery piece.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Mm-hmm. And so does that mean, like, you know, making the lid with the handle on the inside of the lid, or, um- ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. So it's things like, um, on a mug, having the handle, like, horizontal instead of vertical. Um, the... Having some interesting bits I'm quite interested, I quite like is, so what happens if your, if the mug thickness of the rim is too thick, so you can't actually comfortably drink out of it?~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~So, um, you know, the, the, there's a bunch of that. The idea is I wanna put probably about, I don't know, 10, 15 bits together that sort of exemplify stuff that we take for granted, um, but actually, if it's done wrong, you're then, then going, "Well, that's just ridiculous." So just the whole, this whole idea of bad, bad ergonomics.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Um, and so the ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~tea- Pack them all into, pack them all into one ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~How do you mean? ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Pa- pack all the concepts into one. Make, uh, make the horizontal handle on the, on the Norman pot, and then put the spout above that horizontal handle, and then put a lid on it, but put the handle for the lid on the inside of the lid- Inside, yes~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~so you have to re- And then make the out- make the, the, um, the top too thin to actually pour any water into and, uh, you know. ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. There's de- there's definitely a, um, a, a, a bunch of things there that, that, that's interesting. So, uh, we'll see, we'll see how we go over the next, um, bit. My, um, eldest daughter is encouraging me to do, actually do an exhibition 'cause she's, um, she's done that sort of thing in the past.~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~And, um, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll see where that gets. It might not make it out of my, um, out of my backyard, but who knows? ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~That'd be fine. ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~I know. Um- All right ... and I, I made a factual error- ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Oh ... ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~and I ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~need to- A factual error. Okay. ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Yeah. So it turns out that for once, Amanda's listened to the podcast. I mean, who knew?~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~So it turns out that she spent four and a half years studying for her master's, not four like I suggested. Um, so I can, I can only apologize. ~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Well, Amanda, thank you for listening. I m- I hope you heard that I'm proud of you. Uh, and, and four and a half years is nothing to bat an eye at. I'm, I'm really sorry that Barry simplified it down to a s- uh, uh, four years.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Um- ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~You're just good at stuff. That's what I'm saying. So.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Well, I think, uh, I think we're gonna, we're gonna end it early today. Uh, thank you all for hanging out with us and talking human factors. Always appreciate, uh, the live viewership. If you're watching later or listening later, I guess you're a patron or are watching this, um, later, so thank you. And, uh, we'll be back soon enough to talk about more human factors stuff.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~In the meantime, like I said, you can find us in our Discord. Hang out with us there and talk all, all things human factors. We're, we're real big nerds over there for the human factors field, so, uh, we'll, we'll find you there. Until then, I guess, uh, any, any other parting notes, Barry? ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~No, we're good. We shall just see you next time.~

[00:54:41] Nick Roome: ~Okay. Bye everybody. Bye. Thank you. ~

[00:54:41] Barry Kirby: ~Bye. ~

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