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。虽然我们以前也看到过对人工智能的兴趣激增，但最近人工智能的炒作与基本的科学争议、大规模的技术和财政资源分配以及关于希望和恐惧的广泛言论的结合，都标志着当代人工智能作为一种典范的新社会技术现象日益突出。但创新并不能单独决定它们的未来道路；像人工智能那样难以捉摸和广泛的技术受到政治和经济利益的强烈指导，受到社会文化背景的框架，并受制于历史上偶然的方法论趋势和轨迹。该项目通过比较和纵向设计来研究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形成性语言和人工智能问题的框架，这些问题生动地描述了日常实践并指导了未来的轨迹。实证性的工作集中在加拿大、法国、英国和德国。该项目的跨学科视角在概念上受到科学和技术研究(STS)以及新媒体和传播研究的启发，建立在争议和结束的概念之上。实地工作建立在项目合作伙伴开发的“争议地图”的基础上并加以扩展。媒体分析将调查主要新闻机构、利基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，并仔细注意它们的理由。它还将使用精选的专家采访和社交媒体对话，以了解政策发展的背景。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交叉的相关研讨会和会议中试验人种学嵌入。此外，该项目将通过主办参与性研讨会来调查和鼓励公众参与的形式，使利益相关者和公众成员能够辩论和谈判人工智能途径。每一项分析和干预都不会以独立的方式进行，而是条件反射地相互告知。这一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：绘制出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导模式和参与者。这项国际、比较、多方法的研究明确致力于公共知识和参与，旨在扩大和重新分配相关专业知识的范围，以确保人工智能的到来真正为公众造福。

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.