Plenary Sessions All-at-Once

Sci-Fi @CHI: Science-Fiction Authors Predict Future User Interfaces

Aaron Marcus, Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc.
Elliot Soloway, University of Michigan
Bruce Sterling, Science Fiction Author
Michael Swanwick, Science Fiction Author
Vernor Vinge, Science Fiction Author, San Diego State University

What will the human-computer interface be like in the future? Who better to speculate on the distant future of HCI than the people who do it professionally... science fiction authors?

Science fiction novels have recently featured neurochemistry, DNA-engineering, micro-manufacturing, silicon-carbon merging, and virtual reality. They portray distinct visions of user interfaces for computer-based communication, e.g., the use of direct neural-system implants, controlled hallucinations, and hay-wired virtual cyber-worlds. In these scenarios, the user interface becomes a fantastical interplay of dramatic personae, real and imagined, together with signs and symbols in three-dimensional, full-media environments.

Leading science fiction authors Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick, and Verner Vinge bring powerful visions about the impact of these new technologies and how we should evaluate their impact. Notable CHI persona, Eliot Soloway, will praise, denounce, and debate their views. Sci-Fi@CHI 92 was one of the most memorable and popular CHI events ever held. The panelists were provocative, opinionated, and outrageous�and played to a packed audience. Expect the same mental fireworks, and more, for SciFi@CHI 99. Arrive early, get a good seat, and feel the heat!

Bruce Sterling has authored Schismatrix, Islands in the Net, Heavy Weather, and Holy Fire. His nonfiction writings have appeared in World Art, Details, and Wired, and he is a popular speaker about high technology.

Michael Swanwick, the author of In the Drift, Vacuum Flowers, Griffin's Egg, Stations of the Tide, The Iron Dragon's Daughter, and Jack Faust, has received the Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.

Vernor Vinge is best known for True Names, The Peace War, and Marooned in Realtime, which were both nominated for the Hugo Award, and for A Fire Upon the Deep, which won the Hugo Award. His newest novel is A Deepness in the Sky.

Panel discussant Professor Elliot Soloway researches, publishes, and develops products that explore the future of computers and education. He teaches at the University of Michigan, College of Engineering, School of Education, and School of Information.

Panel moderator Aaron Marcus of Aaron Marcus and Associates, Inc. has worked with Apple, AT&T, DARPA, Motorola, MCC, and NCR on advanced user interface designs that are five to 15 years ahead of commercial applications.

How to Become an Internet Felon in Three Easy Steps

Barbara Simons

The ease with which digitized intellectual property can be duplicated, distributed, and accessed on the Internet has generated fear and misunderstanding of the net. These concerns have prompted legislation and regulations that could have the effect of restricting access to information and reducing privacy on the Internet.

The Internet has no national boundaries, and there is no international consensus on how to balance users' rights to privacy and users' rights to protection of their intellectual property. Legislation has been proposed throughout the world that could seriously affect the way that HCI professionals design and deliver interactive technologies.

Barbara Simons will describe some of the resulting potential dangers for HCI professionals and general users of the Internet. She will review current battles over copyright protections and privacy, and will describe how such laws could change the nature of our work.

Barbara Simons earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. She served as Senior Technology Advisor for IBM Global Services. Ms. Simons is a Fellow of ACM and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She was elected president of ACM in 1998.

Ms. Simons is a winner of the 1998 EFF Pioneer Award. In 1995, CNET selected her as one of its 26 Internet "Visionaries"; in 1994 Open Computing named her as one of the top 100 women in computing; and in 1992 she was awarded the CPSR Norbert Wiener Award for Professional and Social Responsibility in Computing. Science Magazine featured her in a special edition on women in science in 1992.

Civil Rights in Cyberspace: How Online Free Speech Restrictions Will Inhibit Online Diversity

Ann Beeson, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

In the past two years, courts in a variety of landmark cases have affirmed strong free speech rights for the Internet. Despite these victories, lawmakers continue to try to squelch the speech-enhancing and democratizing aspects of the online medium through poorly crafted laws and policies.

For example, despite the U.S. Supreme Court's unanimous condemnation of the Communications Decency Act, the U.S. Congress recently passed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), which again puts online speakers at risk of severe criminal penalties for communicating protected speech to adults. COPA does nothing to protect children. But, if not enjoined, it will impose insurmountable burdens on content providers that will devastate small and home-based online businesses, and will eliminate many valuable interactive forums.

In addition, regulators in many places are forcing adults and minors to use blocking software when they access the Internet at public libraries and schools. The software is an arbitrary censorship tool which blocks access to a wide variety of valuable educational, political, literary, and artistic sites on the Internet -- including resources on women's health and safer sex.

Ann Beeson is staff counsel at the ACLU, where she works as a litigator to promote and protect civil liberties in cyberspace. She is a primary architect of the landmark case in which the U.S. Supreme Court in 1997 declared the Communications Decency Act unconstitutional and affirmed free speech rights in cyberspace. She is now lead counsel in the challenge to the second attempt by the U.S. Congress to impose criminal sanctions on protected Internet speech.

The Los Angeles Times named Ms. Beeson one of six "Stars of the Internet" for her work in safeguarding free speech in cyberspace, and she has been profiled as an "Internet Newsmaker" by CNET.