Techno-Enhanced Technology Foresight – Co-, De-, and Re-Construct Futures through Digital Means

Description

We aim to explore the potential of generative AI for participatory and co-creative visioneering process to inform more reflexive, inclusive, and effective practices of knowledge co-production with civil society actors under a broader transformative lens. For this purpose, we will develop a specific workshop exercise based on a series of interventions modeled in a generative AI environment. These interventions will consist of prompts, scenarios, and interactive exercises in which participants co-create future visions with the help of AI tools.

By combining methods from critical future studies (such as CLA, Hermeneutic TA or the Futures Circle) with Gen AI applications, we explore the possibilities of AI driven co-creation processes to engage in a reflective mode to re-imagine human futures with and through AI. Drawing on recent findings about the evolving role of AI in participatory processes, we structure the engagement around three distinct roles for AI. (1) AI as a muse, to spark imagination and encourage creative exploration. (2) AI as co-pilot, to support participants in synthesizing, refining, and advancing their ideas. (3) AI as a support for critical reflection that enables the challenge of assumptions and biases. These roles enable us to explore how generative AI can enrich participatory foresight, while also bringing to light critical ethical and epistemic challenges.

Through this co-creative future worldbuilding workshop based on human-machine interactions, we aim to empirically and collaboratively assess together with the local civil society actors the ethical, socio-technical, and epistemic challenges that arise when integrating generative AI into participatory visioneering processes. Participants will be actively involved in evaluating both the potentials and limitations of AI-supported visioning to co-develop a framework that addresses the conditions for responsible and meaningful human-AI collaboration.

Period	26 Sept 2025
Held at	Leipzig University, Germany
Degree of Recognition	International