Paper Number
1424
Paper Type
Complete
Description
This study questions how AI developers consider the potential consequences of their work. It proposes an imagined futures perspective to understand how AI developers imagine the futures associated with AI. It examines qualitatively the case of some AI developers and their work and find that they consider the future consequences of the AI they participate in developing as tangential – i.e., loosely connected to what they do - or integral – i.e., closely associated with what they do - to their work. These imaginations of the future are in tension, prompting some AI developers to work at connecting them as they adjust how they view the future and their work. This study reveals how AI development relies upon distinctive imaginations of the future, illuminates how practitioners engage speculatively with the future, and explains the importance for IT development of developers’ answers to what their work may do in the future.
Recommended Citation
Vaast, Emmanuelle, "Future imperfect: How AI developers imagine the future" (2022). ICIS 2022 Proceedings. 5.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2022/ai_business/ai_business/5
Future imperfect: How AI developers imagine the future
This study questions how AI developers consider the potential consequences of their work. It proposes an imagined futures perspective to understand how AI developers imagine the futures associated with AI. It examines qualitatively the case of some AI developers and their work and find that they consider the future consequences of the AI they participate in developing as tangential – i.e., loosely connected to what they do - or integral – i.e., closely associated with what they do - to their work. These imaginations of the future are in tension, prompting some AI developers to work at connecting them as they adjust how they view the future and their work. This study reveals how AI development relies upon distinctive imaginations of the future, illuminates how practitioners engage speculatively with the future, and explains the importance for IT development of developers’ answers to what their work may do in the future.
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