Taking your research on the road

Last week we took another road trip with the Future Mundane caravan to the Ethical Dilemma Café as part of Mozilla Festival 2022. This primarily involved parking up the caravan on a street in the Northern Quarter of Manchester and offering the experience to those interested who were either attending the event, getting a coffee or something to eat at the Feel Good Café, or simply passing in the street and curious about what we were doing. The experience was substantially updated from the event in Liverpool for the more-than-human AI exhibition but still exploring people potential future lived experience with AI and Data. We provided the experience over two days and conducted a series of in-depth interviews with willing participants. One of the great things about taking research out of the laboratory or university is the serendipitous encounters you have with the general public which in this case included a builder from adjacent site complete with hard hat and high viz jacket (possibly initially looking for a bacon sarnie and a coffee), local traffic warden, community police offer, and various member of public out and about on their daily activities. These encounters often provide different perspectives on perceptions around AI and Data that those of concerned with such topics might find surprising.