Short abstract:

This talk will share experiences with using creative fiction exercises as tools for centering the engagement and empowerment of non-technical audiences in AI technology assessment and design.

Long abstract:

Constructive Technology Assessment techniques call for the use of real-time strategies to equip those involved in the processes of design with the instruments to make informed decisions regarding the ways in which values become embedded into technologies during the design process. Some of the earliest articulations of constructive technology assessment called for the need for “useful fictions” in the form of “socio-technical scenarios” that could guide design decisions in the face of uncertainty about outcomes of design choices. Buttressed by recent work calling for more radical forms of inclusivity in design processes (e.g., “Design Justice” and “Designs for the Pluriverse”), constructive technology assessment calls for an ethical design process that systematizes and formalizes modes of anticipatory governance. Extrapolative/speculative fiction writing can serve as a way of expanding sociotechnical imaginaries employed in design pedagogy to assist in the collective creation of more fair, just, and equitable technologies. This talk will share experiences with using creative fiction exercises as tools for the engagement of both technical and non-technical audiences in AI technology assessment.