Negotiating the future of AI How societal stakeholders shape imaginaries of artificial intelligence in Germany, the US, and China

This dissertation examines how societal stakeholders negotiate the future of artificial intelligence (AI) by co-constructing AI imaginaries, as dominant, discursively produced visions of desirable and undesirable technological, social, economic, and political futures. Drawing on the Science and Technology Studies concept of sociotechnical imaginaries, and integrating insights from media and platform studies, the research conceptualises AI imaginaries as processual, contested, and power-laden outcomes of interactions among societal stakeholders. These imaginaries not only express stakeholder interests but shape AI development, regulation, funding, and public perception.
Drawing on longitudinal social media analysis, cross-national comparison between the United States, Germany, and China, and over 40 semi-structured interviews with AI stakeholders, the dissertation addresses three core questions: which stakeholders constitute the contemporary AI environment and how they are interconnected; how AI imaginaries are relationally negotiated among stakeholders; and how platform corporations shape AI imaginaries both as influential actors and as infrastructures of public discourse.
The analysis reveals significant power asymmetries in the negotiation of AI futures and substantial national differences in dominant imaginaries. A key finding is the central role of platform corporations, which emerge as multifaceted stakeholders occupying overlapping roles across industry, governance, academia, and media. By simultaneously participating in and enabling public discourse, platforms mediate and entangle AI imaginaries in line with economic and political agendas.
Conceptually, the dissertation advances sociotechnical imaginary research by introducing new analytical frameworks for studying AI and platform imaginaries. It further urges close attention to the communicative and political negotiations through which AI futures are imagined and stabilised.