Table Of ContentEMERGING TECHNOLOGIES / LIFE
AT THE EDGE OF THE FUTURE
Emerging Technologies / Life at the Edge of the Future invites us to think forward from
our present moment of planetary, public and everyday crisis, through the prism of
emerging technologies.
It calls for a new ethical, responsible and equitable path towards possible futures,
curated through in-depth engagement with and across experiential, environmental
and technological possibilities. It tackles three of the most significant challenges for
contemporary society by asking: how emerging technologies are implicated in
the sites of everyday lives; what place emerging technologies have in an evolving
world in crisis; and how we might better imagine and shape ethical, equitable and
responsible futures. The book interweaves three narratives, each of which advances
three sets of concerns for our societal futures: ‘Emergence’, which addresses futures,
trust and hope; ‘Worlds’, which addresses data, air and energy; and ‘Technologies’,
which addresses the future of mobilities, homes and work.
Not simply a critical study of emerging technologies, this book is also an approach to
thinking and practice in times of global crisis that plays out a mode of future-focused
scholarship and action for the first half of the twenty-first century.
Sarah Pink is a design anthropologist, documentary filmmaker and methods innovator.
She is a professor and Director of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab at Monash
University, and an investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated
Decision-Making and Society.
‘What will our future look like? We often think of flying cars, holograms, vacations on
a geostationary space station, robots preparing and serving our breakfast, kitchens with
flashing buttons reminiscent of a spaceship’s cockpit … These stereotypical images
foreground technologies and hide the humans. This book instead focuses on people
and their communities to present the key issues that will shape our future. Most
importantly, it shows the value of social sciences in designing new technologies for
home, mobility, and work. Sarah Pink underscores the need for a new movement that
unites anthropologists and other experts in interdisciplinary teams who dare to step to
the edge of the future, look at the horizon, and explain how our stories might unfold
on our planet and beyond, and how we might live well with emerging technologies.’
Dan Podjed, PhD, Research Fellow and Associate Professor, Institute for Slovenian
Ethnology, Slovenia
‘In this fascinating book, Sarah Pink draws on 20 years of pioneering empirical
research and concept-making to examine how ethical, equitable and responsible
futures can be produced in a world of rapidly evolving technologies that are designed
to serve particular interests. Playful and provocative, Emerging Technologies unsettles
how we think about and approach the future, challenging the reader to imagine and
create new horizons.’
Rob Kitchin, Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute, Ireland
EMERGING
TECHNOLOGIES / LIFE
AT THE EDGE OF THE
FUTURE
Sarah Pink
Cover image: © Getty Images
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Sarah Pink
The right of Sarah Pink to be identified as author of this work has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to
infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pink, Sarah, author.
Title: Emerging technologies : life at the edge of the future / Sarah Pink.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon : Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022011053 (print) | LCCN 2022011054 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032022420 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032022413 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003182528 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Technological innovations--Moral and ethical aspects. |
Technological innovations--Social aspects. | Technological forecasting.
Classification: LCC T173.8 .P535 2023 (print) | LCC T173.8 (ebook) |
DDC 600--dc23/eng/20220706
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011053
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022011054
ISBN: 978-1-032-02242-0 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-02241-3 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-18252-8 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003182528
Typeset in Bembo
by Taylor & Francis Books
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vi
Emerging technologies 1
Futures 14 Data 56 Home 98
Trust 27 Air 70 Work 111
Hope 42 Energy 84 Mobilities 124
Life at the edge 138
References 142
Index 161
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
In any work that draws on ethnographic research, my first thanks go to the many
people who have generously shared their time and experiences in research with
me. Without them it would have been impossible to bring their important stories
rooted in everyday experiences, imaginaries and possibilities to this work. Second, I
thank my many academic colleagues and collaborators in research and research
partners from organisations we have collaborated with. Rather than naming
everyone here, I do so where I discuss work through which we have been con
nected or cite the projects we have worked on together. The arguments and views
I put forward in this book are my own, as are any errors or omissions. However,
without colleagues and friends neither the research that has informed some of these
ideas, nor the motivation to generate them may ever have come about. I hope that
my own contributions to the same projects will be of equal use in enabling col
leagues to develop their own independent writing. Third, much of my work is
partnered with industry or other sectors. I am grateful to the organisations and
individuals whose own applied research ambitions, critiques and commentaries
have given impetus to my own research agenda and helped me to understand what
the issues beyond academia are. Fourth, I thank all the organisations and individuals
who publish and share information, arguments, analyses, interviews and podcasts
online; they offer an amazing array of knowledge, which has become an expanded
ethnographic fieldsite for me.
In this book, I discuss diverse research projects, spanning the last 20 years of my
career. I thank the following organisations who have generously funded my
research. The vision, development, online reviews and theoretical development of
this book, and specifically research into future automated mobilities, futures, trust
and hope, are part of my work as a Chief Investigator in the Australia Research
Council funded Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society
(CE200100005) (2020–2027). Other research discussed in this book was supported
Acknowledgements vii
by: an ESRC (UK) PhD scholarship (1991–1994) which funded research into
bullfighting cultures in Spain; the ‘Slow Food and Cittàslow UK: changing local
lives?’ funded by the Nuffield Foundation (2005–2007); ‘Communication skills of
non/low English speaking construction workers and English speaking site managers’
funded by Constructionskills UK (2008–2009);‘Management of OSH in Networked
Systems of Production or Service Delivery: Comparisons between Healthcare, Con
struction and Logistics’, funded by IOSH, UK (2011–2014); ‘Co-creating, visualising
and sharing knowledge: using digital and mobile technology to improve construction
health and safety’, RMIT University (2014–2015); ‘Acoustic design innovations for
managing motorway traffic noise by cancellation and transformation’, funded by
Transurban (2016–2017); ‘Locating the mobile: intergenerational locative media prac
tices in Tokyo, Melbourne and Shanghai’ (ARC Linkage Project LP130100848) with
Intel (2014–2017); ‘Prácticas de futuro, espacios de creación digital e innovación social
en la cultura digital (D-FUTURE)’ Convocatoria 2014 – Proyectos I+D – Programa
Estatal de Fomento de la Investigación Científica y Técnica de Excelencia Subprograma
Estatal de Generación de Conocimiento (2015–2017); the Data Ethnographies Lab was
part of the Digital Ethnography Research Centre (DERC), and supported by RMIT
University; ‘NUX – Natural User Experience’ in collaboration with SAMSUNG
Research Institute Brazil and Federal University of Pernambuco, Brazil (2017–2018);
‘Human Expectations and Experiences of Autonomous Driving’ HEAD, in collabora
tion with Halmstad University and Volvo Cars, Sweden. Vinnova, Sweden (2016–
2018); ‘Sensing, shaping, sharing: measuring and imagining the body in a mediatized
world’ RJ Foundation, Sweden (2015–2018); ‘Visual Sensing Language’,CityofMel
bourne partnership (2020); ‘City Data Futures Prototype’, City of Melbourne partner
ship (2021); Intelligent Home Solutions for Independent Living, McLean Care Deakin
partnership grant with Department of Health; ‘Social work and social distancing:
Learning from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child protection, service users
and the capacity to keep children safe’, ESRC, UK; ‘ Lower effort energy demand
reduction’ part of the EPSRC Transforming Energy Demand through Digital Innova
tion Programme (2010–2014); ‘Digital energy futures: forecasting changing residential
electricity demand’ (ARC Linkage LP180100203); Workers in transition through
automation, digitalization and robotization of work (AUTOWORK), Norwegian
Research Council. I also thank the many co-researchers, research partners, research
participants a nd colleagues to whom I have sent extracts from this book as I write it:
Yolande Strengers, Rex Martin, Melisa Duque, Kari Dahlgren, Sue Thomson, Alicia
Eugene, Ben Horan, Michael Mortimer, Hannah Korsmeyer, Harry Ferguson, Laura
Kelly, Mark Pivak, Tegan Kopp, Bianca Vallentine, Robert Lundgren, Debora Lanzeni,
Shanti Sumartojo, Ilya Fridman, Benjamin Sovacool, Dylan Furszyfer Del Rio.
Finally, I thank Monash University, Australia, for supporting me to found and
pursue the vision of the Emerging Technologies Research Lab, from which the
argument of this book is inextricable.
EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES
Emerging Technologies / Life at the Edge of the Future is for anyone who considers
themself a stakeholder in our future and is interested in, hopeful for, or concerned
about, emerging technologies. This includes researchers, scholars and students,
professionals, or people who are curious about what engaged scholarship brings to
the central and crucial question of our futures. Because emerging technologies are
on the cusp of what may happen next, they also create the perfect prism through
which to explore what life at the edge of the future – life in anticipation – is like.
Rather than simply asking the unknowable question of what will happen next, we
must learn to understand how our futures will unfold and how we may live well
with emerging technologies. How might we best become participants in con
stituting ethical, equitable and responsible futures? What roles should emerging
technologies – artificial intelligence (AI), automated decision-making (ADM), data,
platforms, and automated and connected devices like autonomous flying cars,
workplace robots or home automation systems – play in our futures?
I write this book from (but not exclusively about) Australia, whose unforgettable
fireworks over Sydney Harbour represent the country’s Southern hemisphere
move into the Gregorian Calendar’s new year, before much of the rest of the
world. There is a further, more ominous, way that Australia might represent snip
pets of possible global futures before they happen elsewhere, beyond its new year’s
fireworks being released a few hours sooner. It has recently been suggested that in
a decade parts of Sydney might be so hot that they will be uninhabitable (Purtil
2021, January 24). In Melbourne, there is increasing risk from rising sea levels to
the beachside blocks of city neighbourhoods (Malo 2019, December 15), and in
the summer months bushfires have consumed the environment across the country,
killing wildlife and filling the air with smoke. The environmental crisis has con
tinued unfolding in everyday life as I have researched and written this book. In
2020 I travelled through New South Wales, surrounded by the effects of drought,
DOI: 10.4324/9781003182528-1
