Crafting the future of the artificial womb - speculative design as a tool for public engagement with emerging technologies

Abstract

This study aimed to characterise the potential of speculative design in public engagement with emerging technologies. Current initiatives in public engagement have important drawbacks, such as the focus on quantifiable impacts, abstract reasoning and difficulties in imagining potential futures. Speculative design is considered a promising tool for public engagement because of its ability to open up dialogues about the societal implications of emerging technologies. Realising its potential depends on a thorough understanding of the reflective practices induced by speculative design. In this study we identified enabling factors for reflective practices to unfold and 3 ways of questioning human-technology relations, namely through scenarios, stereotypes and lived experiences. Our findings show that speculative design encourages imagining futures and facilitates reflection on qualitative impacts in various forms of knowledge by providing thought-provoking prospects. The medium has shortcomings, however. For participants to take on the role of creative moral agents the design needs to tread the fine line between activating them through ambiguity and informing them. Comparing our findings with pragmatist ethics, we show how speculative design can put into practice the four most prominent features of pragmatist democratic ethical deliberation.