You Are Uphill People

Your People

My name is Jacob, or Jake, Wobbrock, and I want to welcome you. I want to welcome all the graduates — we'll get to you in a minute. I want to welcome your family members, your loved ones, your supporters, your student loan officers, and any pesky younger siblings you might have been forced to bring with you. Congratulations to all of you. I'm really, really proud of you. You made it. You made it.

I've been at the University of Washington in the Information School, with a courtesy appointment in Computer Science and Engineering, for about 20 years. And about 15 years ago, I helped co-found this program. In my 20 years here, it is still one of my proudest achievements — starting this program — because I knew by doing so I would get to meet people like you. I knew that by doing so I would bring people like you to campus, and you would bring excellence to campus, and you would bring excellence to the field of HCI and design. And 20 years in, I know I was right. I know I was right because here you are, and you are excellent, and our field will be more excellent because of you.

I want to preface this talk — yeah, we're still in the preface — by saying that it is 100% human-made, fully organic, composed entirely and only by the wet processor that sits between my two ears, including that sentence. It was not written by semiconductors insulated by silicon wafers buzzing about in some warehouse in North Dakota. I want you to know this. It's important to me that you know this. I want you to know that I wrote it, just me, from scratch, with love, like your mama's apple pie. It's that original. I haven't given this talk before, and I will not give this talk again.

Why am I opening with this clarification? I think that'll become clear to you throughout my message this morning, but hopefully it helps make what I have to say a bit more authentic, a bit more me — even if it's flawed, and it is; even if my message is incomplete, and it is. Somehow, it will feel more meaningful, and it matters to me that you know this. I mean, this is what you asked for when you voted for me to be the commencement speaker. You didn't ask me to come here and deliver a talk made by someone else. You didn't ask for me to come here and deliver a talk made by something else. You asked me to bring me, so here I am now. I don't know why, after 10 weeks of HCID 520, you chose to do this, but you did. So here I am, and this is fully me.

And that's kind of it, right? I mean, you're sitting out there, each of you, and I'm standing up here, and we're still trying to have a meaningful personal connection. I'm trying hard not to sound like I'm reading. I'm mostly not reading. I'm trying not to look down too much. I'm trying to look you eye to eye. I'm trying to relate to you as a human to a human. I'm trying to bring my full self and connect with you in your moment of celebration. That's what you deserve, and that's what you've asked of me.

We all need relatedness to flourish. We wilt in isolation, but we can flourish in community.

With your graduating cohort, you are forever now part of the UW community. You are forever now part of the MHCI+D community. These are your people. You don't have to like them all, but they're still your people. Look to your left and right — for real. Look to your left and right. These are your people. These will always be your people, because you've run the race together. You've picked the locks. You solved the maze. You put together the puzzle, and you've suffered together. I'm seeing a lot of nods. You suffered together. You struggled together. Some of you wept together — and I actually know, probably in John's class, when you were building physical things, some of you actually wept together. That's work. That's what teamwork is. That's what real teamwork looks like.

But relationships take work, don't they? You get out what you put in. There are no shortcuts. You can't have a 12-month intensive program without 12 months. You can't have a 12-month intensive program in one week — I mean, we kind of try with immersion studio, but it's not really the full experience, is it? You have to put in the time. 12 months takes 12 months. You tend the garden of these relationships, and if you're lucky, the sun will shine, the rain will fall — especially in Seattle — and some of what is in your relational garden will grow, become sturdy, bear fruit, and maybe even last a lifetime.

The Bus Stop

And so that brings me to what has me quite worried about our present moment — about your future, about mine, about the future of everyone in this room and outside its walls. What has me worried is that technology can threaten our relationships. It can threaten how we work together. It can threaten our relationships to each other, to our communities, to the natural world, to our spiritual lives, and even to ourselves.

I go to the bus stop most days, and every single person is heads down, earbuds in, flicking with their phones. They aren't taking a beat. They aren't at rest. They aren't pondering. They aren't staring up at the treetops or the clouds — hello, capstone group — they aren't listening for birds. I wrote this before yesterday, by the way. I did. I didn't modify it after yesterday. And sure as heck, they aren't talking to the people around them. Those slow things don't give us the dopamine sort that infinite scroll on Instagram gives us, or rage-baiting on X gives us. Things like treetops and clouds and birds and pondering — those are so analog. They're so 2006. That's the year before the iPhone came out.

Nobody online is ever boring or smells bad. Nobody online smells like anything. Nobody online is ugly.

You know, talking to other human beings takes effort, right? I mean, what if they're boring? What if they smell bad? What if they're ugly? Nobody online is ever boring or smells bad. Nobody online smells like anything. Nobody online is ugly. Everyone is exciting, colorful, dynamic, living their best life every instant, all the time. Why it's called Instagram. Maybe it should be called Insta Life.

But a bus stop is just an example. It's a microcosm of what's happening to us — and if we're honest, it's a microcosm of what's happening because of us. We're giving away our attention, our autonomy, our agency, and even our very ideas. We're giving it over to technology, and the companies that make them — we're giving our attention to social media that isn't actually very social at all, to AI to do our thinking for us, to dark patterns that coerce us to act against our own best interests.

We all live in a developed, comfortable world where most everyone acts like water, all of us taking the easiest route downhill. We're not happier. We're not flourishing. We're starved for authenticity. We're starved for community. We're starved for time. We're starved for reflection. We're starved for depth. We're starved for truly original ideas of our own making, and most of all, we're starved for relationship. Our technologies are isolating us.

The problem with everyone acting like water is that all of these good things take effort. Authenticity takes effort. Setting aside time to think, to read, to ponder — it all takes effort. Writing original prose of your own takes effort. Sticking with a reflection and seeing where it leads takes effort. Sketching ideas takes effort. Critiquing others' ideas constructively takes effort. Coming up with truly original ideas takes effort. Relationships take effort, and — as you all know better than ever now — teamwork takes effort. You've just completed a year of massive effort.

Water Flows Downhill

That's why we have something to celebrate today. We wouldn't be here if you hadn't spent a whole year putting in such effort — we wouldn't be here. If you've been water flowing downhill this last year, you were pushing boulder after boulder after boulder uphill. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be here today. I wouldn't have written this, and no one else would be here to celebrate you.

Scientists say it takes 10,000 hours of sustained effort at something to become a true expert in that thing. 10,000 hours. There are no shortcuts. You have to put in 10,000 hours. Deep thinking and deep reading take time. I know some of you probably dislike me, maybe even still, for all the reasons I made you do in the class. But I hope that it also made you think deeply, at least sometimes. You had to put in the time, you had to put in the effort. There were no shortcuts.

Of course, you can ask AI to do a meaning summary for you, but you'll never be an expert that way. Not really. You'll never go deep that way. You're unlikely to have a deep original thought of your own that way. That's the way of water. That's the downhill way. But the views from the mountaintops — like the one you're sitting on today — those lie uphill. Those lie uphill. You have climbed a mountain.

You are not downhill people. You are uphill people. So how's the view?

You know, in our field, crash-course creativity is not usually very creative. Pondering takes time. Reflection takes time. Divergent thinking takes time. You can do convergent thinking on a deadline — in fact, tight deadlines often help us converge. But divergent thinking, that's where the magic is, because that's where the original, innovative ideas are first born. You had to come up with those in your divergent thinking phases. You can't really have a deep aha moment when you're flicking through reams of TikTok videos.

You know, you can ask AI to shorten a paragraph that you wrote, but you can't really ask AI to come up with the next product breakthrough. AI cannot tell you what the next iPhone will be. It has to come from pondering, reading, thinking, and reflecting — it has to come from staring at treetops, looking for patterns in the clouds, listening to birds, and talking to ugly, smelly people at bus stops, who actually might turn out to still be ugly and smelly, but not that boring after all, once you get to talk to them.

So how do we resist these very real temptations to give up our attention, our autonomy, our agency, and our ideas? How do we contend with this societal moment that we're all in — not just our graduates, but everybody here and outside these walls? Billion-dollar, highly fine-tuned, optimized companies are doing everything they can to keep your eyeballs on their interfaces and to use you in their algorithms. They are working very hard to not let those eyeballs, your attention, go. So how do we participate in a tech economy built on these kinds of objectives?

On your attention: your eyeballs are precious. Point them at worthwhile things. Analog things are good, like I've been saying — clouds and treetops and birds. But digital things can be good too. Be deliberate in where you place your attention. Your attention is uniquely yours. It's no one else's. Don't spend it cheaply. Don't give it away cheaply. Treat it as something precious, because it is.

You know, everyone my age and older says life goes by too fast. Don't take out your phone at the bus stop. Take time to do nothing. Nothing is a good thing to do. Ponder. Stare at the sky. Find shapes in those clouds. Talk to your neighbor. Direct your attention to helping others. Life is best lived outside yourself and outside your screens. I promise you, you will have your best ideas about interfaces when you're not looking at one.

On your autonomy — okay, let's be honest, let's be realistic. It's true, AI can do so much for you. I use it in my work. I know others here do too. It can make you good, but it will never make you great. It can be a terrific tool. I'm not against you using it — I mean, I had you use it in Assignment Three in HCID 520. But a tool follows the thinking and the actions of its user. Once you cease to use AI as a tool and instead have it do the thinking for you, you've given up the most precious thing about yourself. You've given up you. You've given up what makes you you — your individuality, your uniqueness, even your flaws.

AI would not have come up with Sketchpad, or NLS, or the Xerox Star. It would not have devised the Fosbury Flop, or the Copernican heliocentric model of the solar system. It would not have written about bus stops or talking to smelly neighbors for this talk. AI could not have written this talk, for better or worse. AI could not have written this talk — even if AI had existed at the time of Sketchpad or NLS or the Xerox Star, even if all of these things had the benefit of AI, AI could not have invented them, because they were unknown. AI can really only work with what is already known. It can recast it. It can clarify it. It can summarize it. It can repackage it. But it can't come up with new, original breakthroughs.

Use AI to learn. Use it for clarification. Use it as a tool.

The third A, and the final A, is your appetite for learning. Keep it. Keep what brought you to this program. Not for money or fame or power or promotions. Those things might come and go, but they won't satisfy your deepest desires. If you stay hungry intellectually, you will ponder. You will read articles longer than 240 characters. You will keep asking AI to help clarify concepts rather than giving you the concepts to begin with.

Live an intellectual life. Live a physical life. Live a spiritual life. Live a relational life. Develop a hunger for all four of these things, for a whole life, and you will be a whole person. Stay hungry, keep a growth mindset, work hard at learning, and learn to work hard. These will be their own rewards, whatever material rewards come or don't.

We don't need more of them. We need more of you.

If you give away your appetite for learning, if you give away your attention, if you give away your autonomy — if you let technology tell you what ideas to consume or produce or pursue or promote — you just become a step in someone else's algorithm, propagating their message instead of your own. We don't need more of them. We need more of you. Don't just become a step in someone else's algorithm.

Now, this path I'm describing is slow. It's not easy. It's not water flowing downhill. It's the uphill path. It's rewarding no matter what the outcomes — it's rewarding for itself. It's the path that your kids and your grandkids will tell when they tell your life story. So continue what you began here. Continue to ardently, adamantly, aggressively protect your attention, your autonomy, and your appetite for learning. These are under threat now more than ever.

Producers, Not Just Consumers

But there's one more thing. So far, you might have noticed I've been talking to you as consumers of technology, as users — and you are, we all are. But you are also producers of technology. You are creators. You are makers. You are, in a word, designers.

I've been telling you not to let your technologies consume your attention, destroy your autonomy, or kill your appetite for learning. But you need to go further. You have a higher responsibility. Don't create technologies that do these things to others — and you actually have to go further than that. Design technologies that actively work against doing these things to others. Create social media that encourages healthy conversations and respectful disagreement. Create AI interfaces that, when they're asked to think for the user, ask the user provocative questions to help the user think through their own ideas. Prioritize user learning rather than simply getting the answer as quickly as possible.

Design for human beings, not just human doings.

What I'm saying is: design for human beings, not just human doings. Put new technologies into the world that help you and help others become fully human — thinking, reading, feeling, pondering, listening, praying, meditating, writing, sketching, and relating. We are all counting on you for these things, and we know you're the ones to do it. And if not you, who? If not now, when?