Beyond HCI and CSCW: Challenges and Useful Practices Towards a Human-Centred Vision of AI and IA

Over the decades, technologies envisioned by pioneers such as Douglas Engelbart are becoming a reality. AI has become an important driver for technological progress, posing questions for the future of human-computer interaction. Our research group at Fraunhofer FIT looks back on a 51 year long research tradition that started with Engelbart's vision and followed through the larger developments of HCI from the introduction of CSCW up to successful projects involving the engineering of large software systems in practice. In this paper, we outline the history of our institute against the background of trends in HCI, working out the cornerstones and “useful practices” from our research tradition towards our vision of the future of a human-centred AI/IA, with the expectation that this analysis may be useful for similar organisations. In doing so, we illustrate tensions between theory and application, humans and technology, and show how keeping those aspects in balance is an important challenge and chance for bringing disruptive emerging technologies successfully into practice.