Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the role of socio-technical fictions in technology hype. Developing this notion, it aims to explore how the factual and the present connect to the imaginary and the future through aesthetic, epistemic, affective, and behavioral performative agencies of such fictions.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates the role of socio-technical fictions in technology hype. Socio-technical fictions are conceptualized as "things that make things," entities that contribute to technological development by bridging what’s instituted as facts with the imaginary realm. While not necessarily illusory or false, these fictions are integral to the inherent uncertainty of emerging, future-oriented technological projects. However, these fictions often go unnoticed: they are entwined in rational practices and engage in instrumental actions, finding refuge under the umbrella of technoscientific legitimacy that potentially enhances their factual basis. These fictions are closely tied to technological promises (van Lente and Rip, 2017), expectations (Borup et al, 2006), metaphors (Wyatt, 2000) and anticipation (Adams, Murphy & Clarke, 2009: 247).

As an indispensable component of socio-technical change, the performative capacities of these fictions are linked to aesthetic, epistemic, behavioral, and affective processes, making them an inherent part of the hype process. Among other functions, these fictions operate as sources of creativity (Beckert, 2016); they aid in making emerging phenomena intelligible, consequently attracting attention; they contribute to the creation of a sense of feasibility and shared expectations, and have subsequent effects on collective behavior. By opening new avenues of action, they generate novelty, stimulate imagination toward new possibilities, and create anticipatory affects such as anxiety and desirability. Under felicity conditions these fictions facilitate the materialization of imagination. However, when exaggerated, socio-technical fictions can become epistemically toxic and undermine the legitimacy of an emerging technological project (Galanos, 2022)