Unlocking wise digital techno-futures: Contributions from the Degrowth community

Pansera, Mario; Ehlers, Melf-Hinrich; Kerschner, Christian

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2019.102474

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…(ii) Second, it is fundamental to identify the organizational settings -and the conditions needed for their emergence -in which non-growth-oriented science, technology and innovation practices are more likely to flourish, how they self-organise, survive, struggle or prosper. Only timid attempts have been done to understand post-growth organizational settings by management scholars (Rätzer et al, 2018), whereas the community of degrowth studies only recently has started focusing on these topics (Kerschner et al, 2018;Pansera et al, 2019). (iii) Third, alternative organizations are often threatened by hostile surrounding entrepreneurial ecosystems that tend to isolate and cut them off from conventional supply chains and networks.…”

Section: Conclusion and A Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era

Pansera

Fressoli²

2020

Organization

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The feasibility and desirability of endless economic growth is being increasingly questioned by scholars and activists. Whilst envisioning alternative economic models is key to assure the sustainability and wellbeing of present and future generations, few studies have analysed what might be the role of ‘innovation’ in a post-growth era. Innovating has become an imperative for the survival and expansion of any form of organisation. But this ‘innovate or die mania’ underpins assumptions – such as technological determinism and productivism – that neglect the socially constructed character of technological development, its politics and its capacity to enable (or disable) just and equitable societies. In this paper we posit that untangling innovation from growth is key to imagine a post-growth era. We show how alternative bottom up initiatives, promoted by a variety of different organizational forms, have challenged mainstream ideas about innovation and growth. These experiments provide a glimpse into what ‘innovation without growth’ could mean in terms of technology and social organization. We conclude by proposing new paths in research aimed at exploring under which conditions post-growth-oriented organizations can flourish and diffuse.

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Section: Conclusion and A Research Agendamentioning

confidence: 99%

Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era

Pansera

Fressoli²

2020

Organization

Self Cite

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“…Digital divide among the mass public could enhance resource allocation in favor of the rich, leaving aside the bottom billion. In addition, it would fuel authoritarian governance of technologies, rather than giving free access to digital technologies in favor of the poor, and the environment, as the degrowth community visualizes through the 2068, based on experts’ opinions (Pansera et al 2019).…”

Section: How Futures Studies Could Address Ethical Dilemmas Derived Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, CLA could inform us what type of futures regarding ML could emerge from democracies, arguably a more citizen-oriented environment, due to monitoring of agencies’ performance as a worldview change. In opposition, in authoritarian regimes, potential scenarios could refer to cycles of citizens’ engagement on new technologies, followed by an exacerbated leaders’ political control, and then reinvigorated citizens’ efforts to employ new technology in response, that is, observing ups and downs in litany, due to competing worldviews in politics (Barberá and Zeitzoff 2018; Pansera et al 2019).…”

Section: How Futures Studies Could Address Ethical Dilemmas Derived Fmentioning

confidence: 99%

How Futures Studies and Foresight Could Address Ethical Dilemmas of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

Domínguez

2019

World Futures Review

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Drawing from ethical concerns raised by communities of machine learning developers and considering predictive analytics’ very short-term predictions, several futures studies techniques are examined to offer some insights about possible bridges between machine learning and foresight. This review develops three main sections: (1) a brief explanation of central concepts, such as big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, hopefully not too simplistic but readable for larger audiences; (2) a discussion about ethical issues, such as bias, discrimination, and dilemmas in research; and (3) a brief description of how futures studies could address ethical dilemmas derived from different time horizons among machine learning immediate results, forecasting short-term predictions, and foresight long-term scenarios.

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“…Some visions and implementations on how to shape greener futures could be characterised as utopian. The shape this can take is across a range of collective control mechanisms versus authoritarian governance, which are discussed in [2] from a degrowth perspective of enabling and convivial technology futures and their opposites. Hereby, a utopia is not an impossible mental construct but rather something out of the ordinary, elsewhere, or in the future -a vision on the possible range of how societies should be de-and reconstructed, structured and operated and how resources are to be employed and distributed [3,4].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

DOWNLOAD Framing Commons for Society-Technology for Electric Infrastructure Supply Systems

Zyl-Bulitta

2019

ATLAS

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his work discusses the dosage of technological systems for infrastructure arrangements and how the concept of commons-based prosumption could be integrated into energy systems and associated transition processes and agency from the bottom up. We span up conceptual tensions across the range of individual and collective interests, namely along the lines of sovereignty and solidarity. To highlight caveats for the use of technologies across different subsections of human societies we suggest ecosystem theory as an extension to other frameworks. We apply those insights to a framing of commons at the interface between technology and society for the socio-technical system of distributed electric energy provisioning. The energy co-prosumer, a fictive character, who would be an agent to help build the common pool resources logic for society-technology is presented. We show that technology as a tool can enable and assist to achieve transformational change and introduce the commons-based co-prosumer instead of the individual-based prosumer. These concepts help discern role, rule and control systems for operational as well as system design aspects of sustainable energy transitions and how these can fit together to mould transformational changes from a systems perspective.

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Unlocking wise digital techno-futures: Contributions from the Degrowth community

Cited by 25 publications

References 35 publications

Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era

Innovation without growth: Frameworks for understanding technological change in a post-growth era

How Futures Studies and Foresight Could Address Ethical Dilemmas of Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence

DOWNLOAD Framing Commons for Society-Technology for Electric Infrastructure Supply Systems

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