Sebastian Deterding
Deliberate designer & empirical philosopher of playful & engaging things. Professor @ Dyson School of Design Engineering, Imperial College. Editor-in-Chief, games.acm.org. @codingconduct@hci.social on Mastodon. https://codingconduct.cc
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- On May 14, 5:30pm BST, I get to give my inaugural lecture as professor at @imperialcollegeldn.bsky.social, in-person & live-streamed. Titled "Making things that move us", it reflects on what games taught me about design, motivation, & life. Do join! www.imperial.ac.uk/events/19128...
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- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingToday's the day! My new book MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER is finally out! If you want to understand why tech billionaires are so obsessed with impossible ideas about space and AI — and why that's dangerous — this book is for you. #MoreEverythingForever www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/adam-...
- A calm, detailed explanation of what the UK Supreme Court ruling on trans people says and doesn’t say and why it matters – one I wanted and needed ever since it came out. Maybe you do, too?
- Everything you need to know about the trans Supreme Court case: What it said, what it didn't, and what happens next iandunt.substack.com/p/everything...
- Channeling @apmcpherson.bsky.social channeling Bill Buxton at a #chi2025 SIG on human-AI collaboration: AI for creatives needs “artist spec” interfaces, and boy are we far away from that.
- Clean, simple, important call-out by Rock Yuren Pang at #chi25 on LLM-ification of HCI research transparency & reproducibility matter! programs.sigchi.org/chi/2025/pro...
- #chi2025 SIGCHI community panel: The paper-presentation-hiring tangle is instituted and thus risky to change, hence most ideas floated are rather marginal. This feels self-disempowering. I do think SIGCHI has institutional power to push more radical change. 🙏
- With deep sympathy and no snark or schadenfreude, I just notice how political upheaval shaping research becomes top of agenda at the #chi2025 SIGCHI community panel as it is hitting the US. …
- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingThis is one of the worst violations of research ethics I've ever seen. Manipulating people in online communities using deception, without consent, is not "low risk" and, as evidenced by the discourse in this Reddit post, resulted in harm. Great thread from Sarah, and I have additional thoughts. 🧵
- The mods of r/ChangeMyView shared the sub was the subject of a study to test the persuasiveness of LLMs & that they didn't consent. There’s a lot that went wrong, so here’s a 🧵 unpacking it, along with some ideas for how to do research with online communities ethically. tinyurl.com/59tpt988
- At Pattie Maes’ #CHI205 lifetime achievement talk: I feel the delta between what research imagined & prototyped and what is commercially available was so much larger in the 80/90s than today (where research feels like catchup or parallel many times). Am I wrong? If not, why is this?
- So I don’t know who needs to hear this but they recreated the world of Yakuza: Like a Dragon 1:1 in Yokohama! #soexcited
- It strikes me that one essential function of the state for working markets is to reduce uncertainty and volatility to make investment planning possible (including but not exhausted by uncertainty over property rights). Within its bounds, a statist economy can be a very predictable economy.
- Heading to #chi2025. Find me at the usual gaming sessions or ping me here if you want to catch up or have an idea for ACM GAMES dl.acm.org/journal/games.
- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingThere are so many ways one could provide context for this data. For example, in the last five years universities have received 52-55% of their research funding from the federal government. That's the lowest percentage since the 1950s. 1/x ncses.nsf.gov/surveys/high...
- Important & doubly depressing read in light of current UK gov proposals to fuel AI growth by forcing creators to opt out of training, when all evidence suggests companies don't care and already exact a big public traffic/maintenance tax on open web resources.
- LLMs put a trust tax on so many interactions. Doing uni admissions interviews now and find myself suspecting that some candidates put my questions into an LLM and read off responses, presumably to also help with language issues. Do we now need to conduct all interviewing in person or just give up?
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- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingBIG TALK!! Sebastian Deterding @codingconduct.cc from Dyson School, Imperial College London is visiting to talk about his research "Chasing Engaging Ingredients in Design" this Thursday from 2-3pm BST. All welcome, join us online! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1202928504...
- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingThis piece from @tressiemcphd.bsky.social starts with a bang and just gets better and better. Gift link.
- The new comes into the world by culture playing with itself. We are the playgrounds and toy shelves.
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- Reposted by Sebastian DeterdingI’ve long used FiveThirtyEight’s interactive “Hack Your Way To Scientific Glory” to illustrate the idea of p-hacking when I teach statistics. But ABC/Disney killed the site earlier this month :( So I made my own with #rstats and Observable and #QuartoPub ! stats.andrewheiss.com/hack-your-way/
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- I don't know ... eighth, seventh bolgia?
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- Most media consumption, including news & non-fiction, is firstly emotion-driven. Put differently: the relevant distinction is not fiction/non-fiction, but mood management/problem-solving. Even problem-solving often firstly addresses an emotional job (eg help baby sleep so I’m not stressed).
- Supervising the first generation of students programming with AI, this resonates a lot.
- Everything is larp now. There is no outside.
- Go read issue #1 and see if it’s your jam! Cold War MAD-style what if world-destroying superheroes all with good intentions is extremely my jam. Most joyful surprise I had with a good what if in a long while.
