Shaping 21st Century​ ​AI. Controversies and Closure in Media, Policy, and Research

21世纪的“人工智能”（AI）目前正处于形成阶段。虽然我们之前已经看到了对人工智能的兴趣激增，但最近人工智能炒作与基础科学争议、技术和财政资源的大量分配以及关于希望和恐惧的广泛讨论的结合，都标志着当代人工智能作为一种典型的新型社会技术现象的崛起。但创新并不能单枪匹马地决定它们未来的道路；而像人工智能这样难以捉摸和广泛的技术则受到政治和经济利益的强烈引导，受到社会文化背景的制约，并受到历史上偶然的方法趋势和轨迹的影响。该项目通过比较和纵向设计来调查21世纪人工智能的这种有争议的形成，对比了2012-2021年10年间围绕人工智能在三个关键领域的发展和话语：媒体、政策和技术科学研究。这些领域中的每一个都包含了人工智能问题的形成性语言和框架，这些语言和框架赋予了日常实践以活力，并指导了未来的发展轨迹。实证研究主要集中在加拿大、法国、英国和德国。该项目的跨学科视角在概念上以科学与技术研究（STS）和新媒体与传播研究为基础，以争议和封闭的概念为基础。实地工作建立并扩展了由项目伙伴开发的“争议制图”。媒体分析将调查主要新闻媒体、小众网站和社交媒体对话中的人工智能辩论。政策分析将绘制和分析每个国家现有的政策倡议、白皮书和法规，并仔细关注其理由。它还将采用精选的专家访谈和社交媒体对话来将政策发展置于背景下。研究分析将绘制出版物档案和科学界的地图，并在人工智能与社会问题相交的相关研讨会和会议上进行民族志嵌入实验。此外，该项目将通过举办参与性研讨会，调查和鼓励公众参与的形式，使利益相关者和公众能够辩论和谈判人工智能的途径。每一项分析和干预都不会以独立的方式进行，而是会反射性地相互通知。这种特殊的研究设计使该项目能够追溯21世纪人工智能的形成：绘制当今人工智能的多样性和争议性，并确定人工智能关闭和稳定的主要模式和参与者。这项国际、比较、多方法的研究明确致力于公众知识和参与，旨在扩大和重新分配相关的专业知识范围，以确保人工智能的到来真正造福公众。

21st-century "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) is currently in its formative stage. While we have seen spikes of interest in AI before, the recent conjunction of AI hype with fundamental scientific controversies, massive allocations of technological and financial resources, and broad discourse about hopes and fears all mark the rise to prominence of contemporary AI as a paradigmatically new sociotechnical phenomenon. But innovations do not single-handedly determine their future pathways; and technologies that are elusive and broad as AI are strongly guided by political and economic interests, framed by sociocultural contexts, and subject to historically contingent methodological trends and trajectories.The project investigates this contested formation of 21-century AI by a comparative and longitudinal design that contrasts the developments and discourses around AI in the 10-year period from 2012-2021 in three key domains: media, policy, and technoscientific research. Each of these domains contain formative language and framings of AI issues that animate everyday practices and guide future trajectories. Empirical work focusses on Canada, France, the UK, and Germany.The project’s interdisciplinary perspective is conceptually informed by science and technology studies (STS) and new media and communication studies, building on the concepts of controversies and closure. The field work builds on and extends the “cartographie de controverses” that has been developed by the project partners. The media analysis will investigate AI debates in major news outlets, niche websites and social media conversations. The policy analysis will map and analyze existing policy initiatives, whitepapers and regulations in each country, with careful attention to their rationales. it will also employ select expert interviews and social media conversations to contextualise policy developments. The research analysis will map publication archives and scientific communities as well as experiment with ethnographic embedding in relevant workshops and conferences where AI intersects with social issues. In addition, the project will investigate and instigate formats of public engagement by hosting participatory workshops that enable stakeholders and members of the public to debate and negotiate AI pathways. Each of these analyses and interventions will not be conducted in a stand-alone manner, but will reflexively inform one another.This particular research design allows the project to retrace the formation of 21st-century AI: to map the multiplicity and contested nature of today’s AI and to identify the dominant modes and actors of AI closure and stabilization. This international, comparative, multi-methodological study with a clear commitment to public knowledge and engagement seeks to extend and redistribute the range of expertise that is relevant to ensure that the coming of AI is truly for the public benefit.