The making of AI society: AI futures frames in German political and media discourses

Abstract

In this article, we shed light on the emergence, diffusion, and use of socio-technological future visions. The artificial intelligence (AI) future vision of the German federal government is examined and juxtaposed with the respective news media coverage of the German media. By means of a content analysis of frames, it is demonstrated how the German government strategically uses its AI future vision to uphold the status quo. The German media largely adapt the government´s frames and do not integrate alternative future narratives into the public debate. These findings are substantiated in the framing of AI futures in policy documents of the German government and articles of four different German newspapers. It is shown how the German past is mirrored in the German AI future envisioned by the government, safeguarding the present power constellation that is marked by a close unity of politics and industry. The German media partly expose the government´s frames and call for future visions that include fundamentally different political designs less influenced by the power structures of the past and present.

Research-Creations for Speculating About Digitized Automation: Bringing Creative Writing Prompts and Vital Materialism into the Sociology of Futures

“…These imaginaries often border on unrealistic hype, presenting novel digital technologies as almost magical in their capacities for offering solutions to global or local social, environmental, and economic problems (Elish & boyd, 2018; Lupton, 2019b). In stark contrast, news reports and science fiction often communicate dystopian visions of AI and ADM as untrustworthy, repressive of people’s agencies, controlling their lives, stealing their jobs, invasive of their privacy and exploitative (Köstler & Ossewaarde, 2021; Lupton, 2021a). Many analyses in scholarship in Internet studies, surveillance studies, and critical data studies adopt a similar perspective (e.g., Couldry & Mejias, 2019; Noble, 2018).…”

Emerging technology for economic competitiveness or societal challenges? Framing purpose in Artificial Intelligence policy

“…This research on AI policy frames contributes to an emerging research agenda on AI governance (see, e.g., Köstler & Ossewaarde, 2022;Radu, 2021;Taeihagh, 2021) that takes a critical lens to interrogate and demystify popular discourses like governing AI for growth, efficiency and competitiveness that presents them as technocratic and value-neutral. Instead, this research agenda highlights normative, social, political and power aspects of AI governance and discourses that support it.…”

“…The concept of policy frames as well as related notions of policy paradigms, discourses and narratives have been productively applied to analyse technology policy (see, e.g., Diercks et al, 2019;Mitzner, 2020;Ulnicane, 2016), governance of emerging technologies (Jasanoff, 2003), and more recently AI policy (see, e.g., Köstler & Ossewaarde, 2022;Nordström, 2021;Ulnicane et al, 2021aUlnicane et al, , 2022. While previous studies of framing AI policy have focussed on governance, uncertainty and national policy, this paper contributes by exploring policy controversies of framing the purpose for AI development and use.…”

Public AI imaginaries: How the debate on artificial intelligence was covered in Danish newspapers and magazines 1956–2021

“…Following the launch of several political AI strategies at national (Dutton, 2018) and transnational levels (European Commission, 2018), an emerging body of academic literature is focusing on the intersection of AI imaginaries, discourses, and framings. Some of this literature deals with AI strategies in national settings, such as Australia (James & Whelan, 2021), Germany (Köstler & Ossewaarde, 2022), the UK (Brennen et al, 2020), and China (Zeng, 2021), whereas other studies take a global or transnational approach (e.g., Bareis & Katzenbach, 2021;de Sousa et al, 2019;Jobin et al, 2019;Natale & Ballatore, 2020;Paltieli, 2021;Radu, 2021;Roberge et al, 2020;Sinanan & McNamara, 2021). For instance, Bareis and Katzenbach (2021) conducted an empirical study of how AI imaginaries are being presented in the national AI strategies of China, the US, France, and Germany.…”