The de Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures: Imaginaries, Interactions and Impact

How does automation affect us, our environment, and our imaginations? Conversely, what should we do about automation? Besides grand narratives and technology-driven design visions of the future, what else can automation provide? With these questions in mind, The De Gruyter Handbook of Automated Futures provides a framework for thinking and doing automation differently while consolidating automated futures as an inter- and transdisciplinary research field. It embeds the imaginaries, interactions and impacts of automation technology in their social, historical, societal, cultural, and political contexts. Scholars and students can use the handbook to imagine, realise and anticipate the possible futures of automation while learning about and engaging with these futures ethically and responsibly. The handbook promotes an agenda that is critical yet constructive and engaging by inviting readers to work with rather than resist automation agendas. Rather than being limited to assessing and evaluating already developed technologies, the handbook illustrates how the humanities and social sciences are essential to the design and governance of people- and planet-centric sociotechnical systems. A fundamental pedagogical approach underpins the handbook. It examines how co-learning and co-creation can be staged and analysed with, rather than for, people and stakeholders and encourages readers to engage in new and alternate modes of research.