Oppenheimer & UX: from atoms to experiences
UX Reflections in Parallel with Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer.
As architects of the human experience, in all of its triumph, tragedy, hope, and horror, how often do we, as UX and product design practitioners, stop to think about what’s being asked of us? How can we take pride in our work while also considering their ramifications?
I found myself reflecting on these and other questions as I watched Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer for a second time in theaters. As with Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer’s scientific curiosity around building an atom bomb, our natural curiosity as designers can lead us to architect products or services that can have ripple effects of harm that span across continents, classes, and economies.
The biopic examines the rise and fall of Dr. Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, and the internal conflicts and moral dilemmas he faces leading up to the successful initial bomb test and the consequences of that success. We see how he handled the Manhattan Project in cooperation with and against military influences, mainly via General Leslie Groves and Major General Kenneth Nichols. As the audience we get to witness an immense multitude of minds, talents, and personalities clash against and collaborate with each other.
We’re presented with varying perspectives on the value, impact, and perceived necessity of the atomic bomb’s creation in an equally mesmerizing, thoughtful, and horrifying manner. Fear is a justification; deterrence is a justification; vitalizing the theoretical is a justification. As soon as the test is deemed a success, we see Oppenheimer’s shift in tone from pride as a scientist who completed an experiment to fear, horror, and regret as the American Prometheus.* He then tries (and fails, as history and the present show) to urge leaders not to escalate arms racing in this new world.
This movie led me to thinking more about our field and our work as UX practitioners in the following ways:
- Theory vs practice; “Theory will only take you so far;”
- The goal of the work or project, and the process of getting there; the ‘why;’
- Collaboration vs compartmentalization;
- And most importantly, consequences and repercussions of delivered work
* “Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. For this he was chained to a rock and tortured for eternity.” This quote is the opening card is important in understanding Oppenheimer’s journey throughout the film.
“Theory will only take you so far”
Dr. Oppenheimer is a theoretical physicist who initially is in disbelief that an atom could be split, and conjures up an elegant mathematical journey on a green double-sided chalkboard to show this. By all accounts of what is known in science at that time, this shouldn’t have been possible. And yet…
This is where many of us designers can get caught in this trap of idealization (myself included). Of course it’s important to have an understanding of theories, of concepts, processes, frameworks, but where we lack more careful examination as an industry is the implications of those theories in real life, whether it’s because we can’t or won’t see the results or impact of their applications. At the risk of disrupting certain sectors entirely as design practitioners, for the benefit of humanity, this will have to change at some point. Our ideas have tangible effects on the world the moment they spill from our minds into meetings and documents and design software and code. As such, it becomes paramount to ask:
Why?
What’s the purpose, the goal, the intended and desired outcome of the work? What’s the process, the journey, the path to getting there? What can go wrong?
We see in Oppenheimer that the Manhattan Project was organized to develop an atomic bomb before the Nazis could, given they had a months-long headstart in terms of research and knowledge. As a viewer, this makes the concept of the bomb somewhat easier to stomach…until news breaks that Hitler is dead and the Nazis are about to surrender. This scene shows a lot of scientists at Los Alamos gathered in one of the working buildings discussing and disputing the necessity of this bomb now that the main purpose for building it is moot.
Oppenheimer walks in on this gathering and in his monologue to the room of theorists, he says that “they won’t fear it until they understand it. And they won’t understand it until they’ve used it. Theory will only take you so far.” Everyone in that room clearly understood the power of an atomic bomb, and became convinced that the practical use of this weapon would “end all war.”
As an industry, because we’re forced to, and sometimes because we don’t stop to reflect more deeply, we follow this logic in designing the products, services, and systems that we do. AI has become a craze in the last few years, following the hype of cryptocurrency and the promise of a new reality in the metaverse. There is incredible, almost unfathomable promise and potential in harnessing these concepts, from taking the theory of each of these to experimentation, iteration, and implementation. But as we’ve seen, hype can only do so much.
The questions that arose after the hype diminished are questions that should have been asked from the start, but why not? We become so enraptured by the next horizon, by the ideals that we don’t give enough pause or consideration to the realities, to the harm or the consequences of those same pursuits. AI is only as unbiased as those who train it. The metaverse is not financially accessible, and would only recreate (and very possibly magnify) the inequities that exist in the real world. Mining cryptocurrency is not 100% environmentally or structurally sound (you may be surprised to know for example that mining in Kazakhstan crippled its power infrastructure).
Some other more concrete examples I want to briefly highlight are: (1) facial recognition in surveillance systems, (2) military drone control UI, (3) military shooter games, and (4) deceptive UX patterns.
- This example ties back to AI being as biased as their creators. We’ve seen and heard stories of facial recognition software racially profiling people of darker skin, Black or not (but more likely Black than not). Much has already been cited and said about this, but a new disturbing case study of AI usage of deceased or missing children can be seen here.
- Many innocent civilians abroad, from Yemen to Somalia to Afghanistan, have died at the hands of drone bombings. While one can argue that in times of conflict minimizing infantry casualties and fatalities is a noble goal, where that argument becomes plagued is when the solution for that problem is applied to wanton murder and genocide (ass seen with the bomb drops on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). And we designers play a hand in it by architecting the interfaces this is all done on.
- While this trend is dying down, there have been too many shooters, especially set in modern times, that depict American troops versus insert-race-here (usually Arabs, Kurds, and sometimes Russians), where you can guess which side is “good” and “evil.” Entertainment value shouldn’t be discounted; people absorb what they consume, and we design those narratives and those characters. As such, we can make or break harmful images, stereotypes, and racial profiling.
- Deceptive UX patterns are an immortal cancer in the digital universe. But in a strange case of possible justice, Amazon is being sued over its purposeful misleading of their customer base, tricking them into signing up for Prime. This is a step in the right direction, and this is a tricky subject to broach since designers likely are forced into designing these disgusting patterns. But at what point does it become too much?
The more and more we look away from the repercussions, and even the horrors, of our own work coming to life, the further we perpetuate the lie that we help humanity while helping it to its ruin. As Oppenheimer says during the countdown sequence to the Trinity test, “these things are hard on your heart.”
Collaboration vs Compartmentalization
In the movie, the military aggressively insists on compartmentalization in the name of national security (since Russia and Communism were perceived as subtle threats at the same time as Nazis being the explicit enemy). Oppenheimer then brainstorms a way to maintain physical separations of the different groups and establishments tied to the Manhattan Project while also combining resources and knowledge at one central location (that being Los Alamos). He justifies this pushback of sorts by mentioning that suboptimal security may cost America the race, but the Nazis finishing first will cost them the race (though there was also a scientific curiosity in creating the bomb). In challenging militaristic dogmas, the team at Los Alamos created the first successful atom bomb.
Different designers possess different skill sets, strengths, career ambitions, personalities, experiences, and weaknesses. Siloing ourselves by project or lane or vertical, especially within our own organizations, would only slow or diminish our growth (professionally and personally). If we each wish to progress a project faster, sure, we can design it out individually. But to go farther with a project, working together is the best way (based on one of my favorite proverbs). You see more when you get out of tunnel vision and enjoy a bridge view instead.
I do however wish to emphasize the importance of having perspectives and opinions that push back against your own, in a productive way, just as those at Los Alamos had expressed their concerns with the Manhattan Project’s necessity after Hitler’s death. Having an entire room of yes-people not only limits design potential, but can further increase the likelihood and degree of harm designed and deployed to the world.
Consequences
“These things are hard on your heart…” until you’ve reflected on the implications of your work going beyond your control and into the world. In the movie, we can see and feel that shift in tone from pride and accomplishment to fear, regret, and eventual dread once the US army decides to take the bombs from Los Alamos to drop on Japan. There’s an irony in which at this point, Oppenheimer speaks briefly with Edward Teller, and he says to Teller that we don’t have a right to dictate how this new weapon will be used since it’s out of the scientists’ hands now. Soon after, Teller asks Oppenheimer to support his desire to build a hydrogen bomb, which Oppenheimer quickly dismisses; he had begun to consider what dangers have and could arise from what they have done at Los Alamos.
Oppenheimer also asks Groves to relay some of his concerns to President Truman around how the bomb is perceived (subtly echoing what Neils Bohr had said to Oppenheimer earlier on in the film: “We have to make the politicians understand this isn’t a new weapon. It’s a new world. I’ll be out there doing what I can but you, you are an American Prometheus. The man who gave them the power to destroy themselves. And they’ll respect that”). Truman exclaims on radio about the bombs that have been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the power and destruction they created. From this point on we begin to see the crippling remorse that plagues Oppenheimer for the rest of his life, and his failed attempts to encourage peace talks and knowledge-sharing among nations and institutions (especially Russia).
One of the greatest scenes in the movie is the congregation following Truman’s announcement of the bombs falling and Japan surrendering. Oppenheimer comes out to the Los Alamos crowd in a small auditorium, and while he spouts congratulatory remarks to rile the crowd up, we get an alternate glimpse of him having some kind of out-of-body experience, the type that a person would have when something just feels too unreal to comprehend. It was a chilling interpretation of these famous and equally chilling words spoken by Oppenheimer in real life:
As designers, we need to cement this understanding in our collective psyche, in our curricula, our practices and processes that what we do and don’t design and advocate for on behalf of people will impact them. Design can have multiple impacts, a single impact, it can be direct, or indirect, and vary in severity or magnitude. As Niels Bohr said to Oppenheimer in the film, building the bomb will bring about a new world, not merely a weapon. Design proposals and our willingness to create those designs have that same effect, though some solutions will have a slower or more subtle effect than others.
We can and should take pride in our work, we can and should celebrate our wins and launches, but at what cost? Retaliation is also real in tech (as with Timnit Gebru’s case); speaking out against juggernauts driving profit at the cost of respect for people’s experiences, needs, and lives is never easy. How may we navigate that as practitioners? As history has shown, as the present shows, and as the future will show if we stay this course, the cost of unchecked progress will always be too great, burdensome, even bloody.
Technology has done marvelous things for humanity, and that progress deserves to be honored and celebrated. But there are still questions we must ask ourselves and of those who hire us to execute their visions (more along moral lines, not just business and bottom lines), as should have been asked about the atom bomb’s creation. How can we take pride in our work while also considering their ramifications? How can we responsibly manage designing AI solutions in a way that can benefit and be accessible and affordable to people, for instance? How can we push back or encourage designs that are more inclusive? More communal and less focused on profit or exploitation? When does justification of our complicity turn into excusing harm? How late is too late to speak out or push back on dangerous ideas? How can we influence business outcomes and safety for our end customers, our communities, our societies, our world?
As with Oppenheimer’s scientific curiosity around building an atom bomb, our natural curiosity as designers can lead us to architect products or services that can have ripple effects of harm that span across continents, classes, and economies. At Los Alamos in the movie, Oppenheimer’s friend Isidor Rabi tells him he won’t join the Manhattan Project, because “[y]ou drop a bomb, and it falls on the just and the unjust. I don’t wish the culmination of three centuries of physics to be a weapon of mass destruction.” I certainly don’t wish for our work to culminate into and simultaneously be reduced to reinforcement of the current inequities of the world, much less a further skewing of those inequities.
*** Recommended reading to further dive into the consequences of design is Ruined by Design by Mike Monteiro.
*** I hope this piece is a conversation starter or reminder for us to examine our work, understand our ‘why’s, communicate and work together to create a more beneficial way(s) of designing.
