Peter Dalsgaard
@peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
430 followers 400 following 27 posts
Professor of Interaction Design & Director of the Centre for Digital Creativity at Aarhus University. Phone +45 20652942
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peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
8/8
Curious? Skeptical? Inspired?

Read the preprint here: drive.google.com/file/d/1QOBj...

Or reach out if you want to discuss how ambiguity and tension might be designed into GenAI tools—not just engineered out of them.

#ECCE2025 #GenAI #Creativity #HCI #DesignResearch #dkforsk
Dalsgaard - 2025 - Cognitive Tension and Creative Ambiguity - Preprint.pdf
drive.google.com
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
7/8
This work contributes to ongoing HCI and creativity research by shifting the conversation:
From “How do we reduce surprise?”
To “What kinds of surprise are worth staying with?”
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
6/8
The takeaway:
Rather than designing GenAI tools for perfect alignment, we should explore how to design for productive friction—interactions that provoke users to think, reflect, and reframe.
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
5/8
The theoretical part builds on:

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger)

Frame conflict (Goffman, Schön)

Predictive error (Clark)

Together, they explain how misalignment becomes a driver of insight—not just a disruption.
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
4/8
These aren’t just abstract ideas. I analyze five examples of how this plays out across:
✍️ Writing (ChatGPT)
🎨 Visual design (Midjourney)
🎵 Music (AIVA)
💻 Coding (Copilot)
🧰 Product prototyping (Fusion 360)

Each case shows how “getting it wrong” can reveal new possibilities.
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
3/8
The paper introduces two core ideas:

Creative ambiguity: when AI output is open-ended, contradictory, or off-mark in suggestive ways

Cognitive tension: when that output clashes with your expectations, creating a moment of interpretive pressure
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
2/8
We often treat GenAI hallucinations or unexpected outputs as bugs. But in creative work, they can be features: points of friction that prompt reinterpretation, redirection, and conceptual expansion.
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
🧵 1/8
When AI gets it “wrong” – and that’s exactly the point.

Thrilled to share that my paper Creative Ambiguity and Cognitive Tension in Generative AI Tools has been accepted for ECCE 2025. It’s about how misalignment between human intent and AI output can fuel creativity.

@au.dk #hci #creativity
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Når #GenAI som fx Google AI Overview skaber nyhedsoverblikket, ændres spillereglerne for #dkmedier & indholdsproducenter. Færre clicks > færre indtægter.
Måske er tiden kommet til at udvikle danske AI-overbliksservices på vores præmisser? #dkmedier #dkforsk @au.dk

www.linkedin.com/pulse/n%C3%A...
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/n%C3%A..
Reposted by Peter Dalsgaard
acmtochi.bsky.social
🎨🧠 How do creatives really capture ideas on the fly?

New TOCHI paper finds idea capture for creative practitioners is fast, messy, and wildly different across creative domains. ⚡Yet all prioritize capturing ideas quickly, even if it disrupts order.

📄 Read the full paper: doi.org/10.1145/3727...
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Great article and presentation, thx 🙏
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Hvis @theatlantic.com har ret, har Meta – med verdens næstrigeste mand, Mark Zuckerberg, i spidsen – brugt ulovligt kopierede bøger og artikler til at træne AI-modeller. Med åbne øjne. Uden at spørge. Uden at kompensere forfatterne. 1/2
www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
@au.dk #dkforsk #forskpol
The Unbelievable Scale of AI’s Pirated-Books Problem
Meta pirated millions of books to train its AI. Search through them here.
www.theatlantic.com
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Thrilled that our paper "Micro-Phenomenology as a Method for Studying User Experience in Human-Computer Interaction" is accepted for #chi2025. It is the culmination of extensive cross-disciplinary collaboration with Katrin Heimann, Minke Nouwens and Suneetha Saggurthi that started five years ago.
a man and a woman are jumping in the air in a hallway with their hands in the air .
ALT: a man and a woman are jumping in the air in a hallway with their hands in the air .
media.tenor.com
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
OpenAI - dem med ChatGPT - benytter sig som mange andre big tech firmaer af lavtlønnet arbejdskraft i udviklingslande, når de skal træne og udvikle deres #AI modeller. Arbejdsforholdene er ofte dybt kritisable, som beskrevet her:
Reposted by Peter Dalsgaard
martintomitsch.bsky.social
“Design to be our best human selves with mediocre AI” - insightful reflection on the role of design and participation in an increasingly automated world - closing keynote by Margot Brereton. #ozchi24
Photo of a slide with the title of a talk and a quote that says As we design, design changes us Photo of a speaker presenting at a lectern with a slide in the background
Reposted by Peter Dalsgaard
mjcrockett.bsky.social
Is it Bad to leave Twitter? No. Here are 7+ years of insights from my lab’s research that explain why.

Featuring work w/ @williambrady.bsky.social @killianmcloughlin.bsky.social

🧵
Reposted by Peter Dalsgaard
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Massively enjoyed this morning’s @ozchi.bsky.social keynote by Paul Dourish on what comes after #HCI.
On why #AI is not the answer (and maybe even the antithesis), and a call to consider why we have strayed from the ambitions of eg Engelbart (to augment human intellect) & Nelson (to save the world!)
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Feel free to put me on the list
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Participants expressed curiosity about the AI tools and appreciated their intuitive alignment with existing workflows, but rarely adopted AI-generated ideas directly, using them more for inspiration.