Let's reconsider our "users"

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First, by focusing on the user, UCD has a tendency to obscure the experiences of other participants in the systems we design — those who aren’t end users, per se, but who interact with or are affected by the system.

Lis Hubert • Camera Obscura: Beyond the lens of user-centered design

Google and Facebook don’t have “users” or “customers”. Instead, they have participants under machine surveillance, whose activities are algorithmically combined within Big Data silos.

Bruce Sterling • The Epic Struggle of the Internet of Things

We describe AI (And computers) as a person, or as people; “It thinks”, “It said”, etc. using verbs that we traditionally use for humans.

Why do we not say process? Or output? Like we do with other machines… A ship doesn’t run across the water and a an espresso machine isn’t crafting coffee.