IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2022 - 90

Commentary
Commentary
AI Futures Literacy
Genevieve Liveley
University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TH, U.K.
" We should abandon the effort to try to be so clever
that we can choose the right model, find the right
data, or make the best guess. There is no way to outsmart
the complexity of reality; unforeseeable novelty
is a certainty. Instead, the approach should be
to try and develop the capacity to use the future in a
range of different ways, and not be limited by prediction
or by narrow conceptions of a desired future. It
is about being Futures Literate. "
-Riel Miller, " Futures Literacy:
Embracing Complexity and Using the Future, "
Ethos, 10, pp. 26-27, 2011.
 When We are thinking about the ethics of
AI and the ramifications for selfhood and society
brought about by technologically enabled modes of
modern indentured servitude, we are thinking about
the future. We are anticipating future risks, imagining
potential disruptions and disruptors, considering the
balance of harms and benefits, assessing their probability
and their scale, and planning mitigation strategies
to deal with them. This article proposes some
new ways through which we might better understand
the scope (and the limitations) of this mode of
anticipatory thinking and so develop a stronger sociotechnical
capability in what we might characterize
as " ethical AI futures literacy. " It also suggests some
first steps toward developing this new approach by
highlighting some of the cognitive biases and deficiencies
which particularly affect such futures thinking
and which shape the anticipatory dynamics of
both human and artificial intelligence [1].
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2022.3173357
Date of current version: 14 June 2022.
90
0278-0097/22©2022 IEEE
Concerns about such biases and deficiencies
and the lack of rigor and reliability in the traditional
foresight tools and methods in use by governments
and other organizations for futures thinking-especially
about the sociotechnical impacts and ethics of
emerging technologies-have long been recognized
[2]. Indeed, it is perhaps surprising that the standard
futuring toolkit used by governments and businesses
has not evolved significantly since the 1960s,
when " futurologist " Nicholas Rescher observed that
[3] " Basically three items of predictive methodology
are at our disposal: the extrapolation of historical
experience, the utilization of analytical models, and
the use of experts as forecasters. " These lacks and
limitations in the theory and praxis of foresight and
futures thinking were flagged again by UNESCO in
2012, when it began to focus on the development of
a global " futures literacy " capability [4].
For UNESCO, futures literacy does not involve
attempts to foresee, predict, prophesy, or divine in
any way the probable, possible, utopian, or dystopian
future(s) for society. Instead, being futures literate
means recognizing the volatility, uncertainty,
complexity, and ambiguity involved in all futuresfocused
or anticipatory activity. It means appreciating
the heuristics and biases that shape futures thinking
and applying that understanding to make better
decisions in the present. And it means acknowledging
the lacks and deficiencies in anticipatory activities
and taking steps, wherever possible, to mitigate
them.
Futures thinking is a sense-making process linked
to the human cognitive faculty that enables us to
imagine and plan; it preexists our ability to walk
or talk [5]. As such, it is particularly susceptible to
cognitive bias-such as the " principle of minimal
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