Abstract
This article reports how 18 UK and Canadian population health artificial intelligence researchers in Higher Education Institutions perceive the use of artificial intelligence systems in their research, and how this compares with their perceptions about the media portrayal of artificial intelligence systems. This is triangulated with a small scoping analysis of how UK and Canadian news articles portray artificial intelligence systems associated with health research and care. Interviewees had concerns about what they perceived as sensationalist reporting of artificial intelligence systems – a finding reflected in the media analysis. In line with Pickersgill’s concept of ‘epistemic modesty’, they considered artificial intelligence systems better perceived as non-exceptionalist methodological tools that were uncertain and unexciting. Adopting ‘epistemic modesty’ was sometimes hindered by stakeholders to whom the research is disseminated, who may be less interested in hearing about the uncertainties of scientific practice, having implications on both research and policy.
Highlights
IntroductionScholars in the field of the sociology of expectations have long shown how news reporting of innovative health technologies is over-emphasised through ‘breakthrough narratives’ (Brown, 2003; Fortun, 2008; Hilgartner, 2015; Petersen, 2018; Samuel and Kitzinger, 2013), and how this hype is not a by-product of innovation, but rather constitutes an innovation process itself: by envisaging futures in the present, it creates a positive vision of the technology, which acts performatively by securing funding in the present (Lehoux et al, 2017; Samuel and Farsides, 2017; VanLente, 2012)
During most UK interviews (n = 9/10), and some Canadian interviews (n = 4/8), participants reflected upon, or were incredibly keen to discuss, how the notion of ‘AI’, as well as the implications attached to its use, were often simplistically promoted and exaggerated in public portrayals of the technology when compared to the actual capabilities of the discipline: ‘there is a culture of reporting artificial intelligence as though . . . it’s from the films rather than what it is’ (Interviewee 10)
Some participants spoke about how the media enthused and over-exaggerated the potential societal good that this new innovative AI would bring: ‘I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm or hype around this area and I think it’s easy to get carried away [in terms of the capabilities of AI]’ (Interviewee 8)
Summary
Scholars in the field of the sociology of expectations have long shown how news reporting of innovative health technologies is over-emphasised through ‘breakthrough narratives’ (Brown, 2003; Fortun, 2008; Hilgartner, 2015; Petersen, 2018; Samuel and Kitzinger, 2013), and how this hype is not a by-product of innovation, but rather constitutes an innovation process itself: by envisaging futures in the present, it creates a positive vision of the technology, which acts performatively by securing funding in the present (Lehoux et al, 2017; Samuel and Farsides, 2017; VanLente, 2012). Pickersgill (2016) describes this as researchers’ ‘epistemic modesty’ (Will, 2010) whereby researchers admit the uncertainty, ambiguity and opacity of their field of study, and juxtapose this with what they see as overly optimistic media representations. Collins (1997, 1999) explains that this disconnect emerges because ‘distance leads to enchantment’ (Collins, 1997): those close to science (researchers working on the science projects) are often aware of the uncertainties of the methods they use, but because scientists tend to ‘black box’ areas of controversy and uncertainty, ‘those distant from the research front [other researchers, policymakers, funders, the public], and not exposed to the art and craft of scientific practice, get a view of science relatively free of doubts and uncertainties’ The further removed from science one becomes, the less uncertain the research appears, leaving an ‘alien science’ (Collins 1999; Hedgecoe, 2006), in which a habitable ‘space’ emerges for socio-technical futuristic expectations to proliferate (Brown and Michael, 2003; Hedgecoe, 2006)
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