Peter Dalsgaard
peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Peter Dalsgaard
@peterdalsgaard.bsky.social
Professor of Interaction Design & Director of the Centre for Digital Creativity at Aarhus University.
Phone +45 20652942
8/8
Curious? Skeptical? Inspired?

Read the preprint here: drive.google.com/file/d/1QOBj...

Or reach out if you want to discuss how ambiguity and tension might be designed into GenAI tools—not just engineered out of them.

#ECCE2025 #GenAI #Creativity #HCI #DesignResearch #dkforsk
Dalsgaard - 2025 - Cognitive Tension and Creative Ambiguity - Preprint.pdf
drive.google.com
June 4, 2025 at 7:34 AM
7/8
This work contributes to ongoing HCI and creativity research by shifting the conversation:
From “How do we reduce surprise?”
To “What kinds of surprise are worth staying with?”
June 4, 2025 at 7:31 AM
6/8
The takeaway:
Rather than designing GenAI tools for perfect alignment, we should explore how to design for productive friction—interactions that provoke users to think, reflect, and reframe.
June 4, 2025 at 7:31 AM
5/8
The theoretical part builds on:

Cognitive dissonance (Festinger)

Frame conflict (Goffman, Schön)

Predictive error (Clark)

Together, they explain how misalignment becomes a driver of insight—not just a disruption.
June 4, 2025 at 7:31 AM
4/8
These aren’t just abstract ideas. I analyze five examples of how this plays out across:
✍️ Writing (ChatGPT)
🎨 Visual design (Midjourney)
🎵 Music (AIVA)
💻 Coding (Copilot)
🧰 Product prototyping (Fusion 360)

Each case shows how “getting it wrong” can reveal new possibilities.
June 4, 2025 at 7:31 AM
3/8
The paper introduces two core ideas:

Creative ambiguity: when AI output is open-ended, contradictory, or off-mark in suggestive ways

Cognitive tension: when that output clashes with your expectations, creating a moment of interpretive pressure
June 4, 2025 at 7:30 AM
2/8
We often treat GenAI hallucinations or unexpected outputs as bugs. But in creative work, they can be features: points of friction that prompt reinterpretation, redirection, and conceptual expansion.
June 4, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Great work, thx 🙏
April 28, 2025 at 3:19 AM
Great article and presentation, thx 🙏
April 28, 2025 at 3:18 AM
57 af mine publikationer er blandt de tekster, de har hentet fra piratsider som LibGen.
Tjek om dine også er med: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.
www.theatlantic.com
March 21, 2025 at 10:57 AM
Der var en, der klarede det med vuvuzelaer, da VM i fodbold var i Sydafrika. Måske vedkommende kan gøre verden endnu en tjeneste?
hackaday.com/2010/06/15/v...
Vuvuzela Removal
We’re hearing complaints everywhere about the noisemakers called Vuvuzelas during the world cup. Whether you are a fan of the sport or not, you can appreciate when a fellow hacker gets annoye…
hackaday.com
December 15, 2024 at 7:33 PM
You can download the paper here: tinyurl.com/ozchi24
outbox.eait.uq.edu.au
December 2, 2024 at 11:17 PM
Feel free to put me on the list
December 1, 2024 at 12:58 PM
Participants expressed curiosity about the AI tools and appreciated their intuitive alignment with existing workflows, but rarely adopted AI-generated ideas directly, using them more for inspiration.
December 1, 2024 at 2:30 AM