'Not yet but soon': Misplaced hope invested in imaginary technologies as solutions to wicked problems

Parviainen, J. (Speaker)
Ridell, S. (Speaker)

Activity: Talk or presentation › Conference presentation

Period	21 Sept 2023
Event title	Geomedia 2023: Digital geographies of hope
Event type	Conference
Location	Tampere, FinlandShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International

Country of activity

Finland

Nature of activity

Scientific

Documents & Links

This presentation focuses on implicit promises of – and hopes invested in – artificial intelligence, digitalization, and robotics as solutions to wicked problems in society. We discuss how envisioning omnipotent technologies intertwine with everyday material practices and organizational infrastructures. Drawing on recent philosophical discussions on temporality and the domain of the ‘not yet but soon’, we argue that anticipation has become a common state when it comes to the regimes of technology politics, shaping innovation and technological investments in multiple sectors of society. Inspired by Sheila Jasanoff’s notion of “sociotechnical imaginary”, we use the term “imaginary technologies” to refer to devices and applications that do not exist yet but are expected – indeed, hoped for – to be deployed soon. Imaginary technologies are not just harmless visions on policy papers but have many concrete effects on people’s activities, also affecting the conditions for existence of other living beings. As the rhetoric of futurity and anticipation keeps dominating discourses on technologies, information systems tend to be launched to users as incomplete, with the hope of developing and completingthe beta versions with the help of users’ feedback. The ‘semi‐finished’ modes of digital systems not only make life and work stressful and cumbersome but even can cause life‐threatening situations.