ACM Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI2026)

July 22, 2026

I attended CUI this year in Bremen and presented provocation work on “The Dangerous Allure of Science Fiction in Conversational User Interfaces.” The presentation was a lot of fun. I used Ralph the Robot (pictured) as an example of non-autonomous social agent designed to use a Wizard of Oz approach to disseminate research material.

I argued that much work in the area was depending on ideas that were not based in practical engineering but rather in science fiction stories and put forward a framework for explicitly describing fictions within anthropomorphic research work:

  1. Theatrical Fictions: Fictions which use anthropomorphism to amplify a performance or make a system more engaging.
  2. Interaction Fictions: Fictions which use anthropomorphism to make a system easier to use.
  3. Experimental Fictions: Fictions such as the Wizard of Oz approach to support controlled experiments.
  4. Future Fictions: Fictions such as those that appear in science fiction stories that can inspire a vision or approach in research work.