Artificial intelligence futures: anticipatory infrastructures for engaged scholarship

In this chapter we argue for an engaged futures anthropology of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which involves learning with business, public and not-for-profit sector organizations who are stakeholders in AI futures. In doing so we work with two futures anthropology concepts – anticipatory infrastructures and anticipatory realism – to investigate the AI future imaginaries of such stakeholders. Our research revealed nuanced, uneven and incomplete visions of AI futures, where uncertainties and contingencies are often centered. We thus propose that contesting the technological solutionism of AI future visions through everyday life imaginaries is only one possible element of scholarly engagement with futures, and advocate for engagement with such co-stakeholders.