HHAI 2026 workshop

More-Than-Human Simulated Interactions as Hybrid Intelligence for Contemporary Challenges

Interacting with Non-Humans and “Things” through AI

We present this interactive workshop as a novel initiative that picks up and combines several ongoing conversations and trajectories that intersect with Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence: Socio-technical and socio-ecological entanglement, non-human and more-than-human design, AI-generated synthetic personas, and AI-powered persona simulations. Acknowledging the limitations of generative AI, we invite participants to co-create non-human personas with Large Language Models (LLMs) and include them as interactive simulations (powered by LLMs) to explore how they can support speculations on different contemporary challenges. While additional topics are welcome, we propose three general ones: Technologies in reproductive care relationships, accessible learning experiences, and sustainable technology development.

For questions contact:
Helena A. Haxvig
helenaamalie.haxvig@unitn.it

Workshop Objectives

We aim to explore how non-human “voices” can be included in participatory and/or speculative processes through AI-generated and -enacted personas, not as background contexts but as active, affective, and material agents. Despite the acknowledged limitations of synthetic human personas we argue that the proven potential of speculative and reflective design justifies extending LLM-empowered persona generation and simulation of non-human actors/participants as a means of “giving voice” to those without one. We extend here the concept of “participant” to encompass technologies, infrastructures, animals, ecologies, and other “things”, thereby decentering the human and enabling pluriversal explorations of our socio-ecological–technical entanglements.

Drawing on recent discussions of AI as an affective and reflective collaborator, we approach LLM-enacted non-human personas as epistemic devices for critical inquiry and creative research ideation. Rather than attributing agency or decision-making authority to the system, we treat AI as a mediating infrastructure—one that stages perspectives and performs voices while remaining embedded within human intentionality and facilitation. In this sense, the “voice” of the non-human is neither discovered nor authentically represented, but co-constructed in a situated socio-technical assemblage.

Engaging with AI-enacted animals, infrastructures, ecologies, and other “things” thus becomes a practice of relational experimentation, mediated by generative AI as a Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence. It invites researchers and practitioners to temporarily suspend anthropocentric defaults and to cultivate alternative modes of attention, care, and imagination. We seek to explore how generative technologies might expand our methodological repertoires while simultaneously sharpening our awareness of projection, translation, and responsibility in human-AI collaboration.

By positioning AI-enacted non-human personas within HHAI, we aim to contribute to ongoing discussions about augmentation, complementarity, and distributed agency, while also challenging the field to consider how hybrid intelligence might extend beyond human-centered collaboration toward more-than-human imaginaries.

Practical Info

The half-day interactive workshop includes a combination of individual and group activities followed up by plenum discussions.

Interested participants will need to fill in an online form with a short statement about their motivation for participation, area of expertise/interest, and topic(s) of interest to enable group formation prior to the workshop. Requests for participation will be reviewed by the workshop organisers and assessed for relevance.

Deadlines

Deadline for application: ~~May 1, 2026~~ May 25 (extended)
Notification of admission: May 29, 2026
Workshop date: July 7, 2026, morning session

Location: Brussels, Belgium

Submit application

Planned Outcomes

We aim to nurture future possibilities for collaboration. Ideas collected will be documented and shared after the end of the workshop to facilitate the organization of future work with and among the participants.

Furthermore, the final developed personas will be made publicly available in an online persona library, where they can be freely accessed and used. Each persona will be attributed to its contributing participants, unless anonymity is requested.

Content and Structure

Approaching workshops as generative spaces that foster meaningful interaction and co-production of knowledge, the proposed workshop invites participants into collective sites of encounter: active explorations and critical engagement with non-human simulated participants.
The method of the workshop aims to rethink how generative AI can foster new ways of Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence collaboration by incorporating more-than-human and multispecies perspectives into the critical exploration and speculation of future ways of living together.
The session and its outcome will, thus, be shaped actively by the participants’ deep engagement.

In practice, this means that participants will be invited to co-create synthetic personas using generative AI and later have these personas enacted by LLMs, bringing simulated voices into the explorations and discussions meant to speculate on future possibilities within various contemporary topics. Accordingly, the participants’ focus will be two-fold: 1) exploring the chosen topics through the method of using synthetic persona interactions, 2) examining said method as a form of hybrid human-artificial intelligence to support collaborative speculation and ideation.

Proposed Focal Topics

The following topics are intended as scaffolds to support the participants in shaping their own lines of inquiry, to be explored thereafter through co-creation of and interactions with non-human synthetic personas (e.g. objects, animals, ecologies, concepts):

Topic 1: Fem Technologies and Well-Being. This topic explores the development, design, and influence of digital and tangible fem-tech technologies on reproductive health and well-being.
Topic 2: Accessible Learning Experiences. We encourage participants to reimagine an accessible learning experience.
Topic 3: Sustainability and Co-existence with the More-Than-Human. We invite participants to envision alternative approaches to sustainable technology development that foreground pluriversal and multispecies perspectives.

Exploration of additional or alternative topics is equally encouraged and applicants can propose these when expressing their interest in the workshop.

Hybrid Human-Artificial Intelligence

Within the broader paradigm of Human-AI collaboration, intelligent systems are conceptualized as contributors to hybrid forms of intelligence that emerge through interaction rather than automation. Research in Human–Human–AI collaboration investigates how intelligent systems can participate in joint cognitive processes in ways that meaningfully contribute to collective outcomes. Work on AI-enhanced co-creative systems explores how hybrid configurations of humans and AI may support ideation and creative work. Hybrid intelligence in this context is thus understood to arise from carefully orchestrated interaction patterns in which AI systems provide cognitive variation and reframing while humans retain interpretive authority and responsibility.

Posthumanist Directions

From a Science-Technology-Society (STS) and posthumanist perspective, technologies, humans, and non-humans are best understood as socio-technical assemblages—heterogeneous constellations of entities whose interactions produce contingent social and material orderings. This, along with recent “more-than-human” perspectives, emphasizes distributed agency, moving beyond human-centered accounts to view technological and social processes as mutually constitutive.

This shift unsettles modernist dichotomies of nature/culture and human/technology, suggesting instead that socio-technical worlds are continuously enacted through relational practices.

Non-Human Perspectives in Design

Research within fields such as Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) has similarly illustrated the importance of approaching technology (including Artificial Intelligence) as entangled with its surrounding social and ecological dimensions, recognizing the ontological inseparability between humans and non-humans, and more-than-human centered design argues for a move towards non-anthropocentric approaches to design that considers this complexity.

Within Participatory Design (PD), we have also seen a shift that extends the democratic ethos of classical PD by reframing design as an ethical and ontological practice of composing livable futures with the more-than-human world.

Workshop Focus

Building on recent work with synthetic and more-than-human personas (e.g. animals, nature, objects), we explore how non-human personas can participate in speculative discussions about livable futures of coexistence between human, non-human, and artificial entities alike.

Our aim is to examine the methodological possibilities and limitations of inviting simulated non-human and “thing” voices into discursive and/or participatory settings: How they shape dialogue, spark speculative thinking, and open (or constrain) new forms of participation.

Personas as “Voices”

One way to “give voice” and simulate participation of those not present in the design process is through proxies, such as personas: concise, evidence-informed character sketches that scaffold design reflection and communication.

AI-Personas

With the emergence of and increasing experimentation with generative AI, a new strand of research has developed in which LLMs are used to generate and simulate synthetic human personas. In these cases, the personas are not grounded in verified user data. Instead, their generation relies solely on the models probabilistic capabilities and specific prompting strategies. When AI is used to impersonate personas and enable simulated interaction with them, studies report benefits for speculative exploration and design ideation. However, research also highlights important limitations of AI-generated personas, including the amplification of unfair biases and gendered stereotypes.

More-Than-Human Personas

Beyond human users, personas can also represent non-human stakeholders, extending proxy participation to entities such as animals, ecosystems, or objects.
Animal Personas

In this vein, animal personas have been proposed and applied to surface multispecies needs and constraints in design processes. By simulating participation, these personas can encourage designers to consider the impact of their work on animals, creating more inclusive and ethical designs.
Object Personas

Object personas have also been introduced to HCI and design fields as a means of decentering the human perspective in design, extending design fiction methodologies beyond the constraints of user-centered approaches. In this way, object personas contribute to a thing-centered perspective on intelligent system design, supporting inquiry into how technologies shape and mediate the human experience within socio-material systems.

Organizers

Helena A. Haxvig is a Ph.D. candidate from the University of Trento (Italy) at the Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science. They research gender bias in AI-generated synthetic personas as well as synthetic persona simulations for inclusive design speculation.

Cristina Bosco is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University (United States), investigating the role that digital tools play in mediating access to care, following a feminist perspective and lens.

Ege Otenen is a Ph.D. candidate at Indiana University (United States), the Cognitive Science and Informatics dual degree program, focused on how technology (social media and AI) drives interactions and influences autobiographical memory and self-reflection.

Giulia Paludo is a Ph.D. candidate in Learning Sciences and Educational Technologies at the University of Trento (Italy) focused on computer science and computational thinking (CT) education within the constructionist perspective.

Vincenzo D’Andrea is an Associate Professor at the University of Trento (Italy), teaching Participatory Design, Information Systems, and other courses. He holds a PhD in Information Engineering, and his main research interest (since 20 years) is Participatory Design of ICT.

Maurizio Teli, is Associate Professor in Responsible Technology Futures at Aalborg University (Denmark). His work focuses on participatory design, digital technologies, sustainable futures, and socio‑ecological justice.