struction of the techno-scientific promises concerning nuclear
technologies. To illustrate these processes, we examine the
promise construction concerning the so-called small modular
reactors (SMRs) in Finland. As the latest in the series of nuclear
sector promises, SMRs are generally defined as reactors with a
capacity of 10–300 megawatt, built in a modular, assembly-line
fashion. The SMRs constitute a heterogeneous group of doz-
ens of designs, some based on the currently operating light-wa-
ter reactor technologies and others applying more innovative ap-
proaches. A number of prototypes are expected to be in opera-
tion by 2030 (NEA 2023), including the LDR-50 small-reactor
designed by the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT)
mainly for district heating. Overall, the SMRs are still very much
a future promise rather than current-day reality, with implemen-
tation and the risk of disillusionment predicted by the hype cy-
cle still some way off.

The current enthusiasm, perhaps hype, around SMRs has its
background in the increasingly pressing needs to cut carbon emis-
sions, the heightened concerns for energy security especially af-
ter the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in February 2022, and the
nuclear industry's attempts to survive in a stiffening competition
with ever-cheaper renewable energy technologies.

Throughout its history, the nuclear sector has experienced
cycles of ups and downs, periods of enthusiasm and hope con-
cerning specific technologies (e.g. fast breeders, successive reac-
tor ‘generations’, fusion, geological disposal of waste) followed
by disillusionment, polemic and again revival of reformulated
promises (Kaijser et al. 2021). The ‘nuclear renaissance’ (Nut-
tall 2022) announced by the industry at the turn of the millen-
nium was cut short, partly because of the 2011 Fukushima ac-
cident, as were the previous attempts to bring SMR technolo-
gies to the market in the US in the early 2000s (Thomas and
Ramana 2022). Importantly, the ongoing latest wave of enthusi-
asm for SMRs is spurred by the formidable difficulties that the
construction of large nuclear power plant projects has in recent

ticles relating to SMRs published over the period, 2) the trends
and the match with the hype cycle model, 3) the main themes
and specific SMR promises and expectations, and 4) the type of
'hype language' employed. We observe that the bulk of the prom-
ise construction efforts has focused on building legitimacy for
SMRs, while the strengthening of credibility – another key in-
gredient of successful promise construction – is only at an early
phase. As for the discursive 'hyping', we note that hype, as meas-
ured by the amount of media attention, is not always accompa-
nied by semantic hype, that is, overly optimistic and exaggerated
language. We furthermore stress that trends of possible media
hype are embedded in their societal context.

Theorizing technological hype, promises and expectations

Our analysis draws on concepts from the sociology of expecta-
tions, which has highlighted the crucial role of techno-scientific
promising in shaping innovation and deployment of new tech-
nologies. Regardless of whether they are fulfilled or not, prom-
ises make things happen, by aligning actors, institutions, and
capital; guiding activities; providing structure and legitimacy;
reducing uncertainty; as well as fostering and steering invest-
ment (Borup et al. 2006; Van Lente 2012; Joly 2010).

A techno-scientific promise can be understood as a specific
form of anticipation and expectation, which encompasses both
the relatively vague visions and more specific statements about
the future of a given technology (Parks 2020). For instance, the
‘umbrella’ SMR promise consists of a large variety of specific
reactor designs under development. These designs – which vary
widely in terms of their energy output, size, fuel type, enrich-
ment level, fueling frequency, site location, and spent fuel char-
acteristics – each constitute a specific promise of its own. The
viability of a promise – whether general or specific – is not an

As for the discursive ‘hyping’, we note that hype as measured
by the amount of media attention is not always accompanied
by semantic hype, that is, overly optimistic and exaggerated language.

years faced in the West (Lehtonen 2021). Compared with these
megaprojects, the SMRs promise to be cheaper, safer, quicker
to deploy, and more compatible with the decentralized and re-
newables-dominated energy systems of the future (NEA 2023).

In the following, we will explore the discursive dimension
of the construction of the SMR promise in Finland. We first
briefly review the key policy initiatives and processes in sup-
port of the SMRs, and then analyze SMR reporting in the lead-
ing Finnish daily newspaper Helsingin Sanomat (HS) in 2000–
2022. The media analysis explores 1) the distribution of the ar-

inherent attribute of the technology in question but instead an
outcome of processes whereby its legitimacy and credibility are
collectively constructed, through the interaction between prom-
issory discourses, their counter-narratives, institutions, and mate-
rial realities. To be legitimate, a promise needs to address a soci-
etal problem widely recognized as important and urgent, whereas
credibility hinges on the perceived ability of the technology to
address that challenge. Credibility typically builds upon past ex-
perience and/or the perceived competence and trustworthiness
of the proponents of the technology. Legitimacy and credibility
are built through ‘trials of strength’ (Joly 2010; Chateauraynaud 2011) – whereby the promise is confronted with counter-narratives, detractors, and unanticipated situations.

When a techno-scientific promise fails to materialize, it engenders disappointment and disillusionment, corresponding to the disappointment phase of the Gartner consultancy hype cycle (figure 1).

The hype cycle model assumes this to occur when the technology enters into the implementation phase (Joly 2010; Konrad et al. 2012). The hype cycle, with its pre-defined five phases of innovation (innovation trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment, and plateau of productivity) is obviously simplistic and deterministic (Borup et al. 2006), and has been criticized on many accounts (Dedehayir and Steinert 2016; Steinert and Leifer 2010).

Yet, the construction of promises often indeed results in hypes. Moreover, regardless of its ability to accurately describe the evolution of a technology, the hype cycle is performative: Whether realistic or ‘excessive’, hype cycles shape the very development of technologies that they seek to describe, for instance when innovation actors anticipate hype and adjust their behaviors accordingly (Konrad 2006; Joly 2010; Alvial-Palavicino 2015). Unlike the hype cycle assumes, promise construction entails gradual modification of the initial promise, not merely hype and disappointment relating to an immutable initial promise (Joly and Le Renard 2021; Lehtonen 2023).

While the hype cycle denotes the amount of attention that the media gives to a techno-scientific innovation, the nature of that attention is likewise crucial. Therefore, we also examine the ‘hype language’ in the articles, i.e., how enthusiastically the SMR promise is presented as a solution to the given problems.

The media is a key public arena in which discursive battles between proponents and detractors of techno-scientific promises are fought, dramatized, and performed (Kojo et al. 2023). These discursive battles contribute to the construction and deconstruction of the promise, generating hype and fueling disappointment, and triggering changes in institutional and material realities. These changes feed back on the discursive battles, shaping the promise discourses and expectations. It is this discursive creation of expectations, as one of the resources and strategies mobilized by actors to steer promise construction, that the media analysis in this research article focuses on. It does so by analyzing the promises and expectations, and identifying indications of hype relating to the SMRs in the leading Finnish daily newspaper.

To place this analysis within a broader context, the following section briefly describes the societal context for the SMR promise construction in Finland.

<figure><img src="image_35.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1: The Gartner Consultancy hype cycle.</figcaption></figure>

Source: Borup et al. 2006, p. 291

## The Finnish context for SMR promise construction

Nuclear power accounts for about 35 % of electricity production in Finland. It has been an important part of the country's energy policy since the late 1970s, and has since then enjoyed widespread support across the political spectrum. In 2002, Finland became the first Western country to approve the construction of a new nuclear power plant (NPP, OL3 UNIT) since the Chernobyl accident in 1986. In 2010, the government approved the construction of further two large NPP units – OL4 and Hanhikivi 1.

As elsewhere, also in Finland the problems with the large NPP projects have driven interest for SMR technology. OL3 entered commercial operation in 2023, 14 years behind the original schedule, and at an estimated cost almost four times higher than the original EUR 3.2 billion (Proctor 2023). Two other NPP projects have been cancelled. OL4 was suspended in 2015 because of the delays with OL3 (TVO 2015), and Hanhikivi 1 was terminated in 2022, after the Russian invasion in Ukraine, given that the Russian Rosatom was both the main shareholder and technology supplier for Fennovoima (Husu and Kojo 2022).

While Finland's currently operating NPPs produce only electricity, SMRs are suggested mainly as a means of decarbonizing district heating (Tulkki et al. 2022). Early studies on nuclear district heating in Finland were carried out in the 70s (Leppänen 2019, pp. 6–10). In the early 2010s, the power company Fortum explored the use of nuclear energy for district heating, and pondered on the possibility of switching to smaller power plants, to reduce financial cost and risk (Lähteenmaa 2013). Fortum (2010) flagged for nuclear energy as ‘the most cost-effective’ and environmentally friendly district heating option for the Helsinki metropolitan area in 2020–2080. More recently, local
politicians in the metropolitan area have shown growing interest in SMRs as a means of reaching the ambitious carbon-neutrality targets by 2030 (Tulkki et al. 2022).

In addition to the state-owned research institute (VTT) small reactor mentioned earlier, also the technical LUT University has embarked on the development of its own LUTHER experimental SMR design, based on light water low-temperature, low-pressure reactor (Truong et al. 2021).

As part of the effort to establish a national ‘SMR ecosystem’, initiated in 2020 (Häkkinen et al. 2023), the adaptation of the regulatory framework for the needs of possible future SMRs is underway, as part of the overall reform of the Nuclear Energy Act. The work enjoys both political and industry support, and seeks to remove “regulatory and licensing barriers” that would hinder the “introduction of series-produced SMRs” and the associated climate benefits (Kojo et al. 2023, p. 5).

## The media analysis: data and methods

To explore the discursive dimension of promise construction, we analyzed the SMR debates in the leading Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat in 2000–2022. HS dominates the Finnish media landscape as the only major national daily newspaper, and is among the country’s three most trusted news media outlets (Media-alan tutkimussäätiö 2023).

Articles were searched on the newspaper's own online database, combining as search terms the derivative of either 'mini', 'small', 'modular', or 'heating and SMR' with the derivative of one of the terms 'reactor', 'nuclear reactor' and 'nuclear power', in Finnish, or using a compound word formed by applying the same principle. Once duplicates had been removed, the screening for relevance of the remaining 892 newspaper articles and the elimination of articles concerning SMRs for naval, test and research purposes, and for spacecrafts and missiles resulted in a final text corpus of 104 texts.

support the interpretations and back up the arguments. The following software was used for the analysis: NVivo 1.7.1 and Microsoft Excel (multiple versions).

## Promises, expectations and hype surrounding small nuclear reactors in Helsingin Sanomat

The distribution of the articles from 2000 to 2022 (figure 2) follows three distinctive phases. At the first phase (2000–2017), small nuclear reactors are mentioned occasionally, in up to three articles per year (altogether 17 articles). The interest picks up at the second phase (2018–2020), with 6–7 articles per year (altogether 19 articles). The final phase (2021–2022) indicates possibly mounting hype and rapidly growing media attention, with 28 articles in 2011 and 40 articles in 2022.

At phase one, the mentions of SMRs were too few to allow a meaningful analysis of the most prominent themes. However, at phase two, climate change and district heating were the themes that started to bring visibility to SMRs. These were central also at the beginning of phase three: In 2021, the most prominent themes were 1) combating climate change, reducing emissions and pursuing carbon neutrality; 2) use of SMRs for district heating to reduce emissions; and 3) a new age of, or future prospects of, nuclear energy and the role of SMRs in such a future. Year 2022 brought to the fore 1) the energy crisis, and the concerns over energy security and self-sufficiency; 2) reports concerning the reform of the Nuclear Energy Act and SMR regulation, while the topic 3) from the previous period (a new age of nuclear and the role of SMRs in it) still remained prominent.

The style of the analysed articles in HS was rather restrained. Explicit promises were rare, except in opinion pieces (HS 01.07. 2021; 16. 12. 2021; 03. 01. 2022; 02. 12. 2022). Instead, the articles typically featured somewhat cautiously phrased expectations or aspirations. Examples included: "[... I]t is hoped that se-

> The viability of a promise – whether general or specific – is not an inherent attribute of the technology in question but instead an outcome of processes.

The analysis focused on four topics in SMR reporting: 1) The distribution of the articles; 2) the trends and match with the hype cycle model; 3) the most frequent themes and the associated promises and expectations; and 4) the types of 'hype language'. The qualitative textual analysis combined close reading and a hermeneutic approach. The texts were subjected to several iterative reading rounds whereby the material considered important for interpretation was highlighted and then re-examined. References and quotations are in the following section used to

ries-produced small reactors will reduce the cost of building nuclear power and bring nuclear energy into new uses” (HS 29.01. 2022); SMRs "[...] are supposed to be sort of off-the-shelf purchasable power plants, which could in principle be produced in series" (HS 17.10.2022); "In small nuclear power plants, so-called passive safety systems are also being pursued" (HS 20.10. 2022); and, "Small nuclear power plants may be able to solve the problem of the high cost and slowness of nuclear power" (HS 18.06.2022). Summing up, alongside improved safety, the ex-
pected main benefits of SMRs were their “small size, versatility, speed of construction and lower costs” (HS 09. 11. 2021).

The understated style of HS clearly extends also to its use of ‘hype language’. The articles seldom applied straightforward hyping up, i.e. portraying small nuclear reactors in an excessively positive light. In 2021, the closest to hyping were mentions of small nuclear reactors as “seemingly very promising” (HS 01. 6. 2021), a “potential future technology” (HS 12. 04. 2021) and “now emerging as one of the interesting alternatives” (HS 09. 12. 2021). Yet, an editorial ended on a rather bold note stating: “[...] but the future belongs to small power plants” (HS 27. 10. 2021). In 2022, while by no

means prevalent, hype was somewhat less restrained, and gaining immediacy, as small nuclear reactors were referred to, for example, as a “hot topic” (HS 01. 07. 2022), “a particularly viable option” (HS 02. 12. 2022), and a “subject of high expectations” (HS 29. 01. 2022). The articles presented such reactors as being capable of transforming energy production, making it more climate-friendly, and even “solving” the energy transition (HS 03. 01. 2022; 30. 05. 2022; 09. 02. 2022; 31. 03. 2022). An editorial from February 2022 rehearsed the declaration from a few months earlier: “The future belongs to small modular nuclear power plants, not to old-fashioned giants” (HS 14. 02. 2022).

## Conclusions

This research article explored SMR hype and promise construction in Finland. The analysis illustrated the embeddedness of promise discourses within the evolving societal context.

The analysis of Helsingin Sanomat's SMR reporting identified three phases, with only sporadic references to such reactors during the first 17 years, an awakening interest since 2018, and a rapidly growing media attention since 2021. The rapid increase in the visibility of SMRs in the third phase indicates signs of hype, in quantitative terms. During this phase, the articles focused on legitimizing the SMR promise, that is, on demonstrating the urgency and societal relevance of the problems that SMRs are expected to solve. The articles highlighted the potential of SMRs in combating climate change, in decarbonizing district heating, and in inaugurating a new era for nuclear energy. In 2022, with the aggravation of the energy crisis as a result of the Russian invasion in Ukraine, these themes were complemented by concerns over energy security. In 2022, HS also showed increasing interest in the plans to reform the Nuclear Energy Act, in particular to facilitate the possible deployment of SMRs.

Despite the increasing number of articles mentioning SMRs – suggesting a possible mounting of hype – from early on the HS

articles generally kept to a cautious language, without making explicit promises concerning the potential of SMRs. Hype defined as the amount of media attention was therefore not accompanied by a corresponding semantic hype. In 2022, however, the HS language began to show signs of hype. In its editorials, HS took quite a clear stance, both in 2021 and 2022, rather confidently declaring that the future belongs to small nuclear plants.

The careful and restrained but gradually changing language of the leading Finnish newspaper shows signs of emerging discursive construction of credibility. The SMR promise construction has thus far mainly focused on legitimization, with climate change, energy security, energy independence, and the past problems with the construction of large reactors as key arguments. HS has hardly sought to establish credibility for the promise – for instance, it rarely refers to authoritative experts or past experience of nuclear technology development to back up the claim that SMRs are viable. More generally, the construction of credibility via efforts to bring about institutional and material change are also at an early stage in Finland. However, some measures have been initiated such as state-financed R & D, feasibility studies by major utilities, development of domestic SMR designs by a technical university and VTT, and a reform of the regulatory framework.

Certain caution is in order when interpreting the degree of ‘hyping’ and the Finnish SMR promise. Firstly, an analysis of a wider range of publications, notably technical and economic journals and magazines, might reveal a different picture of hyping. Second, given that the very function of hyping and promise construction is to facilitate and enable the deployment of a technology, determining whether hype is ‘excessive’ becomes a moving target, and can be done only after the event. What seems excessive today may in hindsight turn out to be realistic, precisely thanks to successful promise construction, including ‘hyping’. The future will tell whether the incipient ‘hyping’ over the SMRs, as revealed in the media debate, will successfully combine with the institutional and material dimensions of promise construc-

<figure><img src="image_36.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 2:** The number of HS articles relating to small nuclear reactors, per year, in the final text corpus.</figcaption></figure>

Source: authors' own compilation
tion, or whether the hype will soon turn into disappointment once implementation gets underway, as predicted by the hype cycle model. The absence from HS reporting of clear counter-narratives that could help balance the expectations suggests that the risk of a hype disappointment sequence could indeed be real.

**Funding** - This work received funding from the KONE Foundation, project number 202105388 and the Academy of Finland, project number 351173.

**Competing interests** - The authors declare no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_37.png" /></figure>

### DR. MIKA KARI

is a sociologist whose research has mainly focused on nuclear waste management and particularly local opinions on the final disposal of spent nuclear fuel. He works at the University of Jyväskylä.

<figure><img src="image_38.png" /></figure>

### DR. MARKKU LEHTONEN

is a social scientist at the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. His recent research has focused on megaprojects, techno-scientific promises, and public controversies in the nuclear energy sector.

<figure><img src="image_39.png" /></figure>

### PROF. TAPIO LITMANEN

is an environmental sociologist whose research has focused on environmental and health risks, particularly those related to nuclear technology. He works at the University of Jyväskylä.

<figure><img src="image_40.png" /></figure>

### ASSOCIATE PROF. MATTI KOJO

has over two decades long experience in studying nuclear power and waste policy issues. He works at the LUT University.

<figure><img src="image_41.png" /></figure>

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

# Omics and AI in precision medicine:
Maintaining socio-technical imaginaries by
transforming technological assemblages

Robert Meunier*,<fnref n="1" /> Ⓓ, Christian Herzog<fnref n="2" /> Ⓒ

**Abstract** • We understand precision medicine as a socio-technical im-
aginary according to Jasanoff. After briefly outlining how the imaginary
of precision medicine emerged from the Human Genome Project and
spread across national contexts, we raise the question of why the im-
aginary and the expectations and promises associated with it persist
despite regular disappointment among practitioners about the fail-
ure of personalized healthcare. We argue that short-term technologi-
cal hypes enable stakeholders to renew and maintain the promises of
precision medicine. In our view, these hypes are around transforma-
tions of a technological assemblage. We discuss this in detail for omics
and AI technologies and evaluate the recent transformations in light of
the long-term imaginary of precision medicine.

Omics und KI in der Präzisionsmedizin: Die Aufrechterhaltung soziotechnologischer Imaginarien durch die Transformation technologischer Assemblagen

Zusammenfassung • Wir verstehen Präzisionsmedizin als soziotechno-
logisches Imaginarium nach Jasanoff. Nach einer kurzen Darstellung,
wie die Imagination der Präzisionsmedizin im Zuge des Humangenom-
projekts entstanden ist und sich über nationale Kontexte hinweg ver-
breitet hat, werfen wir die Frage auf, warum die Imagination und die
damit verbundenen Erwartungen und Versprechen trotz regelmäßiger
Enttäuschung über das Scheitern der personalisierten Gesundheitsver-
sorgung in der Praxis fortbestehen. Wir argumentieren, dass kurzfris-
tige technologische Hypes es den Interessenvertretern ermöglichen, die

Versprechen der Präzisionsmedizin immer wieder zu erneuern und da-
mit die Imagination aufrechtzuerhalten. Bei diesen Hypes geht es nach
unserer Auffassung um Transformationen einer technologischen As-
semblage. Wir erörtern dies ausführlich für Omics- und KI-Technolo-
gien und bewerten die jüngsten Transformationen im Lichte der lang-
fristigen Imagination der Präzisionsmedizin.

Keywords • precision medicine, big data, artificial intelligence,
imaginary, assemblage

This article is part of the Special topic “Technology hype: Dealing with
bold expectations and overpromising” edited by J. Bareis, M. Roßmann
and F. Bordignon. https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.32.3.10

Introduction

The term ‘precision medicine’ appeared around 2010 and
gained prominence since 2015, when the Obama administra-
tion launched the Precision Medicine Initiative (Blasimme and
Vayena 2016). Here is the PMI’s mission statement:

"The future of precision medicine will enable health care providers to tailor treatment and prevention strategies to people's unique characteristics, including their genome sequence, microbiome composition, health history, lifestyle, and diet. To get there, we need to incorporate many different types of data, from metabolomics [...], the microbiome [...], and data about the patient collected by health care providers and the patients themselves." (White House, quoted from Etchings 2017, p. 17)

As the quote indicates, the goals of personalized treatment
and prevention are to be achieved by collecting and integrating
large amounts of heterogeneous data. Such data and the means
for acquisition, management, and analysis are often referred to
as ‘-omics’ in reference to the term ‘genomics’, used for the
information technology-aided study of DNA sequence devel-
oped in the course of the Human Genome Project (HGP). The

<figure><img src="image_44.png" /></figure>

<footnote>* Corresponding author: robert.meunier@uni-luebeck.de</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Institut für Medizingeschichte und Wissenschaftsforschung,
Universität zu Lübeck, Lübeck, DE</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Ethical Innovation Hub, Universität zu Lübeck, Lübeck, DE</footnote>
and Kim 2009, p. 123). We cannot discuss this in detail but refer to Blasimme and Vayena (2016) for the case of the U.S. Importantly, while imaginaries were originally seen as playing out on the national level, Jasanoff's 2015 account suggests that imaginaries can be effective across nations when propagated by economic or professional networks.

Indeed, the HGP as well as the development of the imaginary of PM are strongly connected to U.S. science and health-care policies. However, PM has been adopted by research institutions and policies in developed countries, e.g., in Europe and Japan (Bando 2017). While facing similar challenges for health-care systems, such as an aging society and the rise of chronic diseases, each of these contexts is characterized by specific political and regulatory environments, as well as varying healthcare systems. Also developing countries such as Brazil and China joined the 'bandwagon' (Au and Da Silva 2021).

Analyzing PM as scientific/intellectual movement (SIM) through collaborations as documented in articles published between the 1990s and 2019, Larry Au generates network graphs, which are centered on the U.S. and U.S. institutions, but indicate a global distribution: "These network diagrams can be interpreted as the uptake of a SIM's language by researchers across countries or institutions, and crucially, a working agreement as to what the SIM is – at least enough to facilitate collaboration." (Au 2021, p. 6) The propagation of the imaginary through these networks is then accompanied by continued negotiation of the meanings of the respective labels (e.g., 'personalized' vs. 'precision'), the locus of the novelty compared to previous medical practice or health care models, and normative consequences (e.g., regarding the position of the patient) (Juengst et al. 2016; Erikainen and Chan (2019). We focus here on the technological dynamics accompanying the development of the imaginary.

Before we address the hype around omics and AI (Section 2), we need to highlight a historical conundrum to which it speaks. So far, we have made clear how the socio-technical imaginary of PM emerged from the HGP in the late 1990s and was estab-

years after the conclusion of the HGP (Anonymous 2012). Tim Maughan, a research active physician, after discussing some of the success stories for cancer treatment, cites a study reporting "that the mean improvement in overall survival from 71 targeted cancer therapies approved by the FDA between 2002 and 2014 was only 2.1 months" (Maughan 2017, p. 14). He then diagnoses that the "main scientific reason that has emerged for this relative failure of targeted therapies for cancer is the presence of profound tumour heterogeneity and clonal evolution that can be identified in most cancers" (Maughan 2017, p. 14). Twenty years after the HGP, researchers still observe that "[d]espite personalized medicine [...] being featured prominently in industry and academia, its promise has largely not been realized" (Lamb et al. 2021, p. 20). However, referring to the blood serum proteome as a source for biomarkers, they maintain that "[t]echnological advances for high-throughput measurement of proteins in biological samples have facilitated this work" (Lamb et al. 2021, p. 21). This is a common pattern. Most practitioners see no obstacle to PM's success, in principle. They point out the failure, only to suggest a technological feat that has been missing to reach the goals. Hence, technology plays a crucial role in maintaining the imaginary despite disappointments. We substantiate this view with respect to omics and AI in the context of PM.

## Transforming the assemblage: the omics and AI hype

It is a truism for technology assessment as well as for social studies of technology that technologies are not isolated. To understand how omics technologies and AI are subject to hype and to contextualize this hype in the long-term development of the post-genomic biomedical imaginary discussed above, we need to think of them as integrated in an interdependent manner into a socio-technological nexus, which we conceptualize as an assemblage.

> Technology plays a crucial role in maintaining the precision medicine imaginary despite disappointments.

lished first in the U.S., then in the EU and in many other places. This, however, does not explain why the imaginary has persisted for such a long time. One might think that this is because it brought about or at least partly realized the desired social progress it envisions. And indeed, proponents constantly repeat success stories. However, these success stories are few compared to the candidate targeted drugs and molecular markers pursued in research. Proponents, as well as critical commentators, have thus repeatedly observed that PM "falls a long way short of the predictive and preventative healthcare paradigm it once promised", as an editorial in *Nature Biotechnology* put it about ten

The word *assemblage* is an unfortunate translation of the French term *agencement*, originally used by Deleuze and Guattari (1980). Rather than referring to something larger that is assembled to produce a new and emerging unit, an assemblage is to be conceived of as an “arrangement or layout of heterogeneous elements” (Nail 2017, p. 22). Assemblages are not systems in the narrow sense of constellations whose characteristics emerge from the properties of their components. The description as an assemblage serves to maintain diversity – instead of essence – and emphasizes relations and events between its constituents. Hence, an assemblage allows for the recombination
or removal of its “self-subsisting fragments” (Nail 2017, p. 23) without its (immediate or even eventual) dissolution. Hence the notion is inherently about dynamics and contingencies, rather than stability and unification.

Assemblages, like imaginaries, are dynamic but persistent. There is no cause-and-effect relation between the two. The imaginary involves broader socio-political processes which support the formation of a scientific-technological assemblage that is seen to enable an envisioned social order. But the assemblage and its anticipated capabilities in turn shape this vision. In line with the notion of an imaginary, “desire” gives things the properties they have in an assemblage (Buchanan 2020, p. 56). But this also connects it to short-term technological hypes as organizing collective expectations, which can be understood as “real

(transcriptomics) or the human microbiome (metagenomics). At the same time, various technologies to study proteins and metabolites were further developed for high-throughput data generation (proteomics, metabolomics). ‘Systems medicine’ was suggested as way to deliver PM by providing a framework for integrating molecular omics data. It promised to be more holistic and dynamic than the gene-centered reductionism and determinism of the HGP. The new data generation technologies and computational tools expanded the assemblage and, again, this was described as an ‘omics revolution’ (MacEachern and Forkert 2021).

The shift to the ‘precision medicine’ label is sometimes associated with the inclusion of yet more data sources made available through digital devices (e.g., wearable sensors) and dig-

> The big data approach fostered by extended omics and AI technologies is seen to overcome the limitations of an earlier genome-centric personalized medicine.

time representations of future technological situations and capabilities” (Borup et al. 2006, p. 286). We locate hype in the events of transformation of an assemblage that are perceived or presented as disruptive. Unlike systems-of-things, assemblages are not defined by their components, but rather by their products (Buchanan 2020, p. 47). Even with material elements removed, an assemblage can still result in *actual* effects, e.g., in the form of stories, expectations and hopes that matter to people. Transformations of assemblages through removal or addition of elements, can, hence, perpetuate the promises of an imaginary, even if the specific promises associated with specific technologies fail to be actualized.

The PM imaginary supports an assemblage that involves heterogeneous sets of apparatuses, infrastructure, institutions, and social actors associated with academic, clinical, and industry research. This assemblage underwent several transformations. Many can be described as alterations of existing technologies, integration of technologies from different fields, or the introduction of novel technologies. Some of these events are described by stakeholders as revolutionary.

‘Omics’ already refers to a very heterogeneous set of technologies. In the course of the HGP, DNA sequencing technology evolved quickly and with it bioinformatics tools and infrastructures. These formed the core assemblage of the PM imaginary, which was initially conceived primarily as ‘genomic medicine’. Around 2005, next-generation sequencing technologies (NGS) became integrated into the assemblage. This was seen as revolutionary in many fields, as it made access to sequence faster and cheaper (Bösl and Samida 2021). It not only made it possible to collect more genomic data across populations or for individual tumors, but also to study more extensively RNA transcripts

italization of many processes, including patient records and insurance claims (Etchings 2017; Fröhlich et al. 2018). This ‘extended omics’, includes new data types, e.g., on exposure, lifestyle, or medical history. Extended omics come with a ‘data deluge’ that is seen as threatening the success of these technologies, similar to the earlier ‘bioinformatics bottleneck’ diagnosed in the context of NGS. In this situation, AI technologies such as ML are suggested as solutions as they are expected to meaningfully integrate these heterogeneous data sets (Fröhlich et al. 2018; Heil et al. 2021; MacEachern and Forkert 2021). This merging of omics and AI represents a recent transformative event. Indeed, hype has been diagnosed for biomedical big data and AI (Fröhlich et al. 2018). At the same time, this event aligns the PM imaginary with other big data imaginaries. In fact, none of these technologies are exclusive to biomedicine. They are used in other fields in biomedicine, biology, and elsewhere. But each lead to new infrastructures, institutions, social roles, and research designs in the context of the PM imaginary.

The term ‘artificial intelligence’ does not reference any single or specific mathematical method, computer hardware, or way of deployment. Rather, AI in itself constitutes an assemblage of all elements able to achieve an output behavior reminiscent of intelligent human behavior (cf. Wang 2019). AI technologies have even broader applications than omics and are currently discussed in terms of hype with respect to many fields. Both research and popular literature are rife with statements signaling “overpromised and underdelivered” results of AI in health care (Strickland 2019, p. 24) and remaining “major technical and ethical questions” (Rajpurkar et al. 2022, p. 36). Yet the belief in the potential of AI remains firm, even while proponents openly call for “a need for bold imagination” (Rajpurkar et al., 2022,
p. 36). As Schneider and Lösch (2019, p. 205) put it with reference to assemblages, such imagination “would not be conceived as something of the isolated mind or person but an emergent effect of the relations and co-operations of elements”.

To be sure, in its current shape, the assemblage associated with the PM imaginary involves more than extended omics and AI. Older technological elements are still included. Omics still includes sequencing and AI technologies are built on long-term bioinformatic infrastructures. Furthermore, there are other elements, some constituting recent novelties, that we do not discuss here, such as advanced imaging, organoids, or single-cell omics, each perceived as disruptive in an ever-accelerating cycle of technological transformations. The key insight is that hyping new technologies and, hence, transforming an assemblage is related to the technologies’ ability to speak to and re-new the promises that have been put forward with respect to earlier configurations of the assemblage in the context of an imaginary. Paradoxically, the fact that previous technologies integrated into the evolving assemblage did not deliver what was expected does not create distrust in the new ones but makes them stronger, as they can be presented as overcoming the shortcomings of the older ones. The big data approach fostered by extended omics and AI technologies is seen to overcome the limitations of an earlier genome-centric PM.

## Conclusion

This research article clarified the relation between long-term socio-technical imaginaries, entailing promises and expectations, and short-term technological hypes, which we have described as applying to technologies as integrated into and transforming an assemblage associated with an imaginary. The PM imaginary emerged in the wake of the HGP and has persisted for a quarter of a century, carrying forward the same set of promises of improving healthcare based on individual characteristics of patients and healthy citizens. Despite some success stories, the promises have not been fulfilled to an extent that would justify the amount of support mobilized by the imaginary. What maintained the imaginary was the continued transformation of the assemblage of research technologies. Most recently, the perceived revolutionary event of introducing and merging extended omics and AI technologies enabled stakeholders to maintain the PM imaginary.

How then should we assess these technologies, resisting the hype? It is certainly not warranted to infer inductively that because previously hyped technologies did not deliver on the promises of PM, extended omics combined with AI will not deliver either. However, the long-term developments suggest a more cautious approach regarding the expectations. This is relevant regarding the normative aspects of the PM imaginary. The emphasis of omics and AI approaches on the use of more data on more levels of a citizen's life, from life-style information gathered by mobile devices to medical records, for research and

clinical practice, brings with it a number of ethically relevant issues: increased medicalization of healthy individuals (Erikainen and Chan 2019), the moral duty of data donation (Lee 2021), or concerns about data security or discrimination resulting from undetected biases (Geneviève et al. 2020). These issues can be represented as ‘costs’ on the side of health care receivers and need to be related to expected benefits. Hence it is important to reflect on how realistic these expectations are.

Nonetheless, previous hypes maintaining the imaginary also teach us that transformations of the assemblage had many effects on how research is done, even if those were not always the expected ones. Likewise, the current big data regime will certainly result in innovations in research and industry, new infrastructures, institutions, and actors (Heil et al. 2021). Big data approaches might even eventually lead to personalized treatment and prevention. But then, one can also assess the PM imaginary as a whole and the social order it envisions. Many have criticized the way it unevenly supports economic aims and diminishes efforts to improve public health measures (most recently, Tabery 2023).

**Funding** • Robert Meunier received funding from Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), project nr. 390884018.

**Competing interests** • The authors declare no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_45.png" /></figure>

### DR. ROBERT MEUNIER

works at the University of Lübeck as research associate in the Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” since February 2022 and is visiting postdoctoral fellow in the MPRG “Practices of Validation in the Biomedical Sciences” at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.

<figure><img src="image_46.png" /></figure>

### PROF. DR. CHRISTIAN HERZOG

is head of the Ethical Innovation Hub at the University of Lübeck since January 2020. He is a transdisciplinary researcher with a PhD in engineering and an M.A. in applied ethics. Since 2023, he is appointed Professor for the Ethical, Legal and Social Aspects of AI.
# Don't believe the hype?: Imagined business futures and overpromising for a decarbonized economy

Thomas Frisch*,<fnref n="1" /> ID

**Abstract** • International climate governance is increasingly focusing on the role of the private sector. This article explores how companies translate the narrative of deep decarbonization into their entrepreneurial visions of the future. Based on a qualitative multiple case study, it shows that overpromising is an essential feature of imagined business futures, and identifies three forms of overpromising: contradiction, exaggeration, and commitment. The research article contributes to the emerging field of hype and overpromising by proposing a contextual and nuanced understanding of overpromising. The results illustrate the power of desirable transformation narratives, but also their limitations and side effects.

**Don't believe the hype?: Unternehmerische Zukunftsvisionen und Overpromising für eine dekarbonisierte Wirtschaft**

**Zusammenfassung** • Die internationale Klimapolitik nimmt zunehmend die Rolle des Privatsektors in den Blick. Der Beitrag untersucht, wie Unternehmen das Narrativ einer tiefgreifenden Dekarbonisierung in unternehmensspezifische Zukunftsvisionen übersetzen. Auf der Grundlage einer qualitativen vergleichenden Fallstudie wird gezeigt, dass Overpromising ein wesentliches Merkmal solcher Zukunftsvisionen ist. Es werden drei Formen von Overpromising herausgearbeitet: Widerspruch, Übertreibung und Selbstverpflichtung. Der Artikel leistet einen Beitrag zum noch jungen Forschungsfeld von Hype und Overpromising, indem er ein differenziertes und kontextabhängiges Verständnis von Overpromising vorschlägt. Die Ergebnisse zeigen die Macht wünschenswerter Transformationsnarrative, aber auch ihre Grenzen und Nebeneffekte.

**Keywords** • decarbonization, imagined futures, overpromising, companies, sociology of expectations

This article is part of the Special topic "Technology hype: Dealing with bold expectations and overpromising" edited by J. Bareis, M. Roßmann and F. Bordignon. https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.32.3.10

## Introduction

Companies tend to perceive climate change as a risk. However, a counternarrative has been gathering pace since the Paris Agreement in 2015. This metanarrative (over)emphasizes the opportunities of a decarbonized economy and can be connected to an “incantatory climate governance” model in international climate policy (Aykut et al. 2021, p. 519). A telling example of such an opportunity narrative are companies’ claims that they will become climate-neutral, net-zero, or even climate-negative. Critical studies have shown that most of these claims lack a clear understanding of what net-zero means (Fankhauser et al. 2022) and do not hold up to scrutiny, since they exclude certain business activities, lack concrete action plans, or overestimate the maturity and scalability of new technologies, such as carbon removal (Net Zero Tracker 2023). Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continue to rise, not least because of insufficient corporate responses to climate change (Engels et al. 2023). Set in this context, companies’ climate commitments may not be taken seriously or could even lead to further ‘climate delay’ (Lamb et al. 2020) and ‘time-buying’ for a fossil-fuel-based economy (Boettcher et al. 2021). This article explores how companies construct imagined business futures in response to decarbonization pressure and argues that overpromising is a distinct feature of these imagined business futures. Based on a case study of 20 international companies from various industries, it identifies three forms of overpromising: contradiction, exaggeration, and commitment.

<figure><img src="image_47.png" /></figure>

<footnote>*Corresponding author: thomas.frisch@uni-hamburg.de</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, DE</footnote>
## Theoretical framework

Deep decarbonization means drastically reducing the amount of CO₂ and other GHG emissions in the atmosphere and is imperative for reaching the goals of the Paris Agreement (Geels et al. 2017). The energy transition away from fossil fuels is crucial, yet deep decarbonization requires a radical change in how the economy as a whole is organized (Sovacool et al. 2023) – and it is arguably the most important political project in global climate governance. Since multiple narratives about deep decarbonization compete for hegemony in public discourse, it would be naïve to assume the dominance of a single one or to claim that there exist clear distinctions between opposing narratives. Instead, narratives co-exist, overlap, emerge in different variations, change over time, and they require translations in different contexts (Beck et al. 2021). In the wake of the “incantatory climate governance” model (Aykut et al. 2021, p. 519), companies are increasingly under pressure to clarify their roles within a deep decarbonization scenario. In response, they construct imagined business futures, or – in other words – visions of how they imagine doing business in a deeply decarbonized economy.

## Constructing imagined business futures for deep decarbonization

Beckert’s (2016, 2021) concept of imagined futures demonstrates how fictional expectations and narratives are an inherent feature of capitalism and an important source for economic actors’ long-term decision-making, especially in times of uncertainty. Imagined futures are projections of how the future could unfold, a complex mélange of known facts, informed assumptions, and judgments about probable developments, enriched with emotional components (Beckert 2021). Credible imagined futures become performative and are powerful resources for guiding organizational strategies and decisions. In our case, companies need to translate the vague imaginariness of deep decarbonization into concrete, company-specific, and, most importantly, desirable scenarios, which presents a complex challenge for companies, particularly those in carbon-intensive sectors (Engels et al. 2020).

Companies construct imagined futures to influence and align with the expectations of their institutional environments, of their business partners, and their stakeholders (Beckert 2021). These futures are communicated via narratives and legitimized by “instruments of imagination” (Beckert 2021, p. 1), for example, cognitive devices, such as different methods of planning, forecasting, or scenario-design. Narratives include rhetorical means, such as metaphors or personification, and make use of numbers, images, and graphs (Beckert 2021). Examples in the context of deep decarbonization include the metaphor of green growth, environmental key performance indicators, colorful charts of emission reduction pathways, glossy images of pilot projects, and portraits of people who drive change in the company.

## Overpromising and the creation of unrealistic expectations

The disconnection between what companies promise to do and what they actually do has been studied by institutional theory on organizational decoupling (Powell and DiMaggio 1991; Meyer and Rowan 1977), particularly related to Corporate Social Responsibility (Velte 2023). It is well understood how decoupling is rooted in an organization’s search for legitimacy gains vis-à-vis external stakeholders, juxtaposed with structural constraints or certain inter-organizational logics (Suchman 1995; Powell and DiMaggio 1991). Similarly, future-making practices are full of implicit values and presuppositions. Thus, they act as frames of potentiality that require constant re-interpretation and adaptation rather than unambiguous scripts for action. However, there is a difference between necessary flexibility, considering the uncertainty of the future, and generating unrealistic expectations.

The Sociology of Expectations (SoE) is insightful for understanding how unrealistic expectations build a fruitful ground for hype and overpromising. SoE is concerned with the performativity of desirable expectations and is typically applied to innovation processes or early stages of technology development (Borup et al. 2006). It has shown how expectations are key to understanding social and technological change by mobilizing resources and aligning actors toward a desired future. One line of research focuses on the notion of hype, i.e. “a peak of positive expectations, without claiming that these expectations are necessarily and intrinsically inflated” (Bakker and Budde 2012, p. 553). Research has investigated the formation and development of hype, its potential for generating action, and its temporal dimension, particularly the so-called ‘hype cycle’ (Bakker and Budde 2012; Van Lente et al. 2013). Recent studies have suggested a more gradual and context-dependent understanding of hype as a particular form of exaggeration (Intemann 2022) shifting the question toward when or to what extent overpromising is appropriate or not. Others pointed to the fact that desirable and undesirable futures follow distinct but similar logics (Kester et al. 2020). Some authors have started to investigate the mechanisms behind hype creation, including the linguistic features of hype (Millar et al. 2022) and the practices that fuel and prevent hype or those that are suitable for its deconstruction.

This article investigates deep decarbonization as a site of ‘hyperprojectivity’ (Mische 2014), where companies engage in ‘anticipatory practices’ (Alvial-Palavicino and Konrad 2019), such as developing imagined business futures for a decarbonized economy. It argues for a context-specific and nuanced understanding of overpromising and identifies three forms of overpromising in companies’ imagined futures: contradiction, exaggeration, and commitment. While overpromising is essential (and inevitable) for the construction of imagined business futures, each type is characterized by different underlying dynamics and not all types of overpromising are problematic, per se.
Research design

The article follows an explorative, qualitative research design. It is based on a multiple case study realized within a longitudinal research project covering three years of interaction with 20 panel companies from Brazil, Germany, Hongkong, Japan, and the United States. The methods feeding into the analysis are: three rounds of semi-structured group interviews with sustainability managers; a review of publicly available documents; and interaction with company representatives as part of an ongoing research cooperation. Interview transcripts and company reports serve as primary material for the analysis, supplemented by field notes.

Interviews took place annually between 2020 and 2023. They covered four recurring topics:

1. climate goals and strategy;

2. climate management activities, achievements, and barriers;

3. organizational implementation;

4. external influences and stakeholder interaction.

The Hamburg-based project team organized and carried out the interviews. Academic partners supported arranging and holding the interviews in Hongkong and Japan. The author was involved as an interviewer with Brazilian, German, and US companies.

The author analyzed the transcripts and reports following a Grounded Theory approach with coding until theoretical saturation along three steps of open, axial, and selective coding

(Strübing 2021). The topic of overpromising emerged through constantly engaging with the material, and it became more prominent with the increase of corporate net-zero commitments and parallel reports about the low robustness of these commitments. As there were no direct questions about hype and overpromising, the findings are the result of a thorough reading of transcripts and reports that has necessarily been filtered through the interpretive lens of the author. Due to the short format of the paper, the focus lies on the most prominent themes identified in the material.

The sampling aimed for variety to avoid industry- or country-specific biases. The following criteria were applied for inclusion in the sample: a minimum of three companies per country, from different sectors, with high direct or indirect emissions and capital market orientation. Several companies qualified for inclusion and were approached via networks and local academic partners. Twenty-two companies agreed to participate in a long-term study with annual interviews and regular exchanges (Fig. 1), but two were excluded from the analysis: one ceased to participate after the first year and the other was an insurance company without high emissions. Thus, the final sample comprises 20 companies covering different industries and occupying diverse positions along the value chain. Some are at the core of the energy transition or heavily dependent on fossil fuels, while others are closer to end consumers. All companies operate internationally and are at least indirectly influenced by different regulations due to their supply chains or main customers. They

<figure><img src="image_48.png" /><figcaption>**Fig. 1:** Sample overview by D°GREENS project (Decarbonization: Global Research on Effects in Enterprises and Societies) at University of Hamburg.</figcaption></figure>

Source: author's own compilation
differ in size, revenue, business model, and product portfolio, as well as in the scale, feasibility, and achieved level of transformation.

The combination of a qualitative approach and a huge variety in the cases allows for an in-depth study of company-specific factors and a more comprehensive perspective. However, there is no intention for a comparison based on country, sector, or size, and given the small number of cases, nor is there any legitimacy for this comparison. Instead, the analysis aims to find similarities in the ways companies speak and write about their imagined business futures. This requires reducing the complexity of each case and disregarding influential factors, such as sector-specific challenges or regulatory differences. Yet, the goal of this research is to open up the field of corporate future-making practices for the study of overpromising and to provide resources for follow-up research.

## Analysis

### Overpromising as contradiction

Overpromising as contradiction is characterized by ignoring, repressing, or downplaying apparent tensions between the necessity for decarbonization and other strategic company goals. Two examples were particularly prominent in the empirical material: business growth versus emission reduction and cooperation versus competition. Many companies claim to have sustainability at the center of their strategies or speak of sustainable growth as a new strategic direction. However, the conflict between growth and absolute emission reduction necessary for deep decarbonization is rarely made explicit or framed as a challenge to overcome: "You can grow economically, but you have to find ways to decouple emissions from that and bring them down. And I think that is the huge challenge that not only we are facing, but somehow all the players in the field." (German company, March 2023) Companies are aware of the difficulty but do not question growth as a goal, which strengthens the overall narrative that capitalism can become 'green' or 'sustainable'. However, a recent study calculated that the decoupling rates between emission reductions and economic growth of high-income countries would need to increase by a factor of ten by 2025 to meet these countries' fair-share contributions to the 1.5 °C target, i.e. considering a country's historical emissions and its capability to reduce them (Vogel and Hickel 2023). Such an increase in decoupling would require either a radically different type of economic activity – i.e. a departure from the growth imperative – or a quantum leap in technological development, both of which seem very unlikely.

A second area of conflict exists between cooperation and competition: "There is a sense of teamwork that we have to be part of this trend in Japan, but at the same time, it has become an area of competition, and we are competing to be the first to introduce this area of expertise to the world and increase its value." (Japanese company, May 2022) Climate action is a

complex problem and requires concerted action that goes beyond common levels of cooperation in the economy. Companies have expanded collaborative activities with a wide range of stakeholders, particularly with regard to the supply chain, customers, and, to some extent, competitors. However, cooperation predominantly centers on data collection in a supplier-customer relationship, or knowledge exchange and advocacy in initiatives in industry associations or between climate leaders across sectors. While this provides resources and incentives for emission reduction activities, much more cooperation is required to realize a deep decarbonization of emission-intensive industries, particularly in terms of technology and infrastructure development.

As these two examples illustrate, overpromising as contradiction is rooted in some of the defining logics of capitalism and represents a major obstacle to reaching deep decarbonization. Companies as profit-oriented, competitive organizations will not be able to overcome this type of overpromising without systemic changes. However, there is a strong interest within the global economy and its existing power structures to maintain the illusion of a possible decarbonized business future with "continued growth in demand and profit, [but] without substantial contestation and trade-offs" (Tilsted et al. 2023, p. 6).

### Overpromising as exaggeration

Critical studies have shown that companies exaggerate in various ways when speaking about their decarbonization plans: by excluding certain business areas or emission categories from their climate targets, by employing strategic or selective disclosures about emissions, and by overestimating the (future) demand for low-carbon products or the scalability of emergent technologies (Net Zero Tracker 2023; Velte 2023). In contrast to contradiction, exaggeration is not a systemic failure of the current global economy, but a response to external expectations that a transition towards a decarbonized economy is possible. The past years have seen a tremendous increase in this type of endorsing response, primarily driven by the financial industry.

This increase has produced an avalanche of net-zero targets, fostered the development of new disclosure standards, and given birth to a whole industry that provides tools to track GHG emissions or evaluate companies' transition plans and climate performance. In this context, how companies imagine a decarbonized business future becomes a matter of reputation and stakeholder management. Even companies that were initially hesitant to announce climate neutrality targets in the first year – "We wouldn't promise anything to the outside world where we don't say we have a very high probability of achieving that, right?" (German company, November 2020) – did so within this paper's research timeframe and became guilty of overpromising.

A recurring challenge for companies has been collecting emission data from their own operations and suppliers, which are far from the "real" data: "So, then we realized: 'Come on, why [is] your emission so much higher than we were expecting?' Then we realized that [...] [t]hey are reporting other business units that they have under their companies that are not in our
*value chain, but of course, it affects their total numbers.*” (Brazilian company, January 2022) Nevertheless, companies publish numeric data in reports, which are considered when evaluating targets or calculating remaining carbon budgets, suggesting objectivity and a realistic assessment of companies’ emissions.

This clearly illustrates that data-driven climate governance is full of implicit exaggeration, which is known and accepted by their addressees in for example the financial industries. Overpromising as exaggeration is similar to what Intemann (2022) has described in science journalism: it is explicit as well as implicit, gradual, and closely related to value judgments about what is (in)appropriate in specific contexts. Unlike contradiction, there are possible ways of dealing with this type of over-

change and create large-scale support for decarbonization within companies, as well as through the diffusion of norms, such as target setting, across the economy.

## Conclusion

This research article investigated how companies translate the narrative of a transition towards deep decarbonization into company-specific imagined business futures. It argued that overpromising represents an essential and inevitable feature of imagined business futures and identified three forms of overpromising: contradiction, exaggeration, and commitment. Each

> Dystopian imaginariness may inhibit climate action because of feelings of fear and apathy.

promising within the current economic system, for example, by combining the pressure for transparency with clear methods of accountability. These initiatives are typically market-based and can more successfully become part of a dominant narrative, such as the popularization of the Science Based Targets initiative or the development of mandatory sustainability standards.

## Overpromising as commitment

The final type of overpromising highlights the generative character of high expectations and thus adds a more positive take on overpromising, which can be understood as a form of commitment. An illustrative example is a public announcement of ambitious climate targets without a concrete plan, something frequently mentioned within the research sample: “If we waited until we had everything figured out, we would never announce. And I think that’s what happens with a lot of companies. [...] If you wait for the perfection, you will never make the plans.” (Company from the United States, February 2022) While this could be perceived as an exaggeration of a company’s capability of achieving its targets, company representatives stressed the importance of making a public commitment to creating a governance structure within the organization, allocating monetary and human resources or speeding up processes.

This becomes particularly evident in companies that have only recently begun to think about their roles within a decarbonized economy. A company representative from Brazil explained how sustainability moved from the company’s margins to being one pillar of its strategic planning resulting in increased responsibilities and recognition within the organization: “We coordinate now more or less sixty people [...] Of course, we are not the number one [priority] because all the areas, all the departments have their own responsibility. But now the doors are open for us, totally.” (Brazilian company, March 2022) Overpromising as commitment in this sense could even initiate organizational

of them lacks credibility, but in different ways: Downplaying value conflicts between decarbonization and other company goals is rooted in some of the defining logics of capitalism, growth and competition, and the implausible vision of green capitalism. Decoupling external disclosure from internal processes is related to expectations of stakeholders that companies support the transition towards deep decarbonization. However, a public commitment to decarbonizing, even if implausible, also stimulates change and creates large-scale support within organizations and across the economy. The results illustrate the power of desirable narratives, but also their limits and side effects. Dystopian imaginariness may inhibit climate action because of feelings of fear and apathy. Mainstreaming an opportunity narrative around a decarbonized economy comes with the cost of accepting overpromising and unrealistic imagined business futures. This may be important when initiating organizational change but just defers uncomfortable yet necessary decisions in the long term. In order to prevent further climate delay (Lamb et al. 2020), it is important to have shared, desirable, just, and realistic futures, and to engage in honest and constructive conversation about the degree to which overpromising is productive and appropriate for dealing with the complex challenges of decarbonization.

**Funding** • The research was funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy – EXC 2037 “CLICCS – Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” – Project Number: 390683824.

**Competing interests** • The author declares no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_49.png" /></figure>

THOMAS FRISCH

is a PhD researcher in Sociology investigating ongoing transformations in the economy. Since March 2020, he has worked as a research fellow in a sub-project of the DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society (CLICCS)” at the University of Hamburg.
# Overpromising in science and technology:
An evaluative conceptualization

Stefan Gaillard*,<fnref n="1" /> ID, Cyrus Mody<fnref n="2" /> ID, Willem Halfman<fnref n="1" /> ID

**Abstract** • This research article examines overpromising in scientific discourse that may raise unrealistic expectations in order to gain trust and funding. Drawing on signaling theory, philosophy of promising, and science communication research, a conceptualization of overpromising is presented. This conceptualization facilitates the evaluation of promises in science and technology and highlights the importance of the knowledge context. Further research is needed to explore the broader dimensions and motivations for overpromising.

*Overpromising in Wissenschaft und Technik: Eine evaluative Konzeptualisierung*

**Zusammenfassung** • In diesem Forschungsartikel werden übertriebene Versprechungen im wissenschaftlichen Diskurs untersucht, die überzogene Erwartungen wecken können, um Vertrauen und finanzielle Unterstützung zu erhalten. Basierend auf der Signaling-Theorie, der Philosophie des Versprechens und der Forschung zur Wissenschaftskommunikation wird eine Konzeptualisierung des Overpromising vorgestellt. Diese Konzeptualisierung erleichtert die Bewertung von Versprechen in Wissenschaft und Technik und hebt die Bedeutung des Wissenskontexts hervor. Weitere Forschung ist erforderlich, um die breiteren Dimensionen und Motivationen für übertriebene Versprechungen zu untersuchen.

**Keywords** • conceptualization, evaluation, overpromising, promises, signaling

This article is part of the Special topic "Technology hype: Dealing with bold expectations and overpromising" edited by J. Bareis, M. Roßmann and F. Bordignon. https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.32.3.10

## Introduction

Overpromising of potential breakthroughs or social benefits is a regular feature of scientific discourse (Rip 2006): In order to attract research funding, promote research projects, or attract public attention, researchers make inflated or even untenable claims (Eisler 2012). Particularly in disciplines like nanoscience, dependent on their supposed future potential for funding and appeal, such promises are prevalent (Mody 2006).

Promises are assurances which may lead to expectations and agreements, and can therefore be used as signals to solicit trust or other resources. Promises can take little time and effort for the promiser, but if there is information asymmetry, assessing the promise will take more time and effort for the promisee. Together, these three characteristics can incentivize overpromising in science and technology; scientists who overpromise can gain short-term benefits with easily expressed promises, while it is difficult for promisees to assess promises at the frontier of knowledge. At the same time, promisees such as colleagues, funders, and policymakers, would benefit from improved overpromise detection. This article offers a conceptualization to as-

> A broken promise is not a necessary condition for overpromising.

sist in a more time-efficient, critical investigation and interrogation of overpromises, specifically for future-oriented promises (under conditions of information asymmetry) assuring breakthroughs or social benefits. Although knowing the characteristics of the promisers would further facilitate this investigation and interrogation, this is left for future study.

Our investigation draws on signaling theory (Gambetta 2011), philosophy of promising (Sheinman 2011a), and science studies research on scientific communication. To clarify overpromising and its proposed assessment, we include examples from nanobiology, taken from grant applications, reports, popular science books, and patents. We conduct a conceptual analysis of over-

<figure><img src="image_50.png" /></figure>

<footnote>*Corresponding author: stefan.gaillard@ru.nl</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Institute for Science in Society, Radboud Universiteit, Nijmegen, NL</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University, Maastricht, NL</footnote>
## Rules of the game

Even without leading to (formal) agreements, promises in grant applications can create expectations, for example among inexperienced researchers unfamiliar with the rules of the game. The lack of codified conventions, coupled with the promisee's ignorance of these conventions, hinders proper understanding of the signaled intentions. Similarly, statements which are not expressed as promises might still be interpreted as promises due to the context in which they are made. Scientists may hedge their statements about the future or their future actions by presenting them as mere predictions, but do so in contexts where the audience might interpret them as promises, leading them to either expect the scientists to conduct certain research and deliver particular outcomes or expect certain developments to occur. Promisers therefore need to carefully take into consideration their (potential) audiences.

Which expectations, beliefs or agreements follow from the cultural, societal or occupational context influences what the promise exactly entails, and thus whether the promise is an overpromise or not. If the adequate interpretation of promises is practice-specific, misinterpretation across practices may be looming. For all these reasons, we can question the rules of the game that give rise to overpromising.

## Overpromising in science and technology

Overpromising in science and technology refers to scientists promising more than is rational within their context of knowledge – which means, the total sum of their knowledge. Given our current state of knowledge, some promises can be known to be impossible, for example, promises which violate the law of identity. In other cases, there might be an ongoing debate about the current state of knowledge, leading to conflicting views on whether a promise is questionable or not. This happened when futurist and engineer Eric Drexler and chemist Richard Smalley debated Drexler's promises concerning molecular assemblers. In the 1980s, Drexler made promises regarding scientific and technological developments such as “molecular assemblers will bring a revolution without parallel since the development of ribosomes, the primitive assemblers in the cell” (Drexler 1986, p. 21). According to Smalley, fundamental, unavoidable and thus insurmountable problems would arise when trying to build these molecular assemblers (Smalley 2001), meaning Drexler's promises would be overpromises. As a final category, there are promises that do not contradict established knowledge, yet are inherently uncertain due to the exploratory nature of scientific research. However, even under uncertainty, we can distinguish promises from overpromises by whether they consider the current context of knowledge. It is precisely in these cases where the determination of whether they are overpromises becomes most challenging and where conceptual clarification is most essential.

## Overpromising and broken promises

Because overpromising entails making promises without taking into consideration the context of knowledge, overpromises are often broken. However, it does not follow that broken promises are necessarily due to overpromising or that a fulfilled promise was not an overpromise when it was made. Although one might intuitively look to broken promises for indications of overpromising, this strategy would limit the investigation of overpromises to retroactive analysis and runs the risk of unjustly equating overpromises with broken promises. Consider the following two cases. First, scientists who had made promises to their funders about conducting research in exchange for funding in the period just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, it became clear that they would not be able to sufficiently access their laboratories, making their promised deadlines impossible (Stoye 2020). Yet their original promises were not overpromises: Their promises were possible at the time they were made – they could not have foreseen that a pandemic would subvert their deadlines.

Second, the American privately held corporation Theranos. The company's owner and its president assured potential investors that Theranos would develop devices using finger-prick blood samples for a wide range of laboratory tests (Levine 2018). Early on, these promises closely resembled academic overpromises – the owner told investors that the company would do the research needed to meet the promised benchmarks for scaled-up production and improved reliability and sensitivity, similarly to the promises made in grant applications. However, the founder of Theranos made these assurances even though there was no indication the company was able to develop these devices. She maintained this unfulfilled promise for fifteen years, until the company was legally dissolved for having lied to investors.

### Context of knowledge

These cases illustrate that whether a promise was fulfilled or not is not the determinant of whether a promise is an overpromise, but rather whether the promisers take into consideration the context of knowledge when making a promise. In both cases, the promise was broken, but in the first case the promisers took into account all the knowledge available to them; in the second, they did not. When they made their promise, the scientists in the first case could not have expected that the COVID-19 pandemic would occur and disrupt their ability to meet deadlines (Stoye 2020). Therefore, when they made their promise, it was rational: Under normal circumstances they would have had lab access, and subsequently would have been able to meet deadlines and fulfill their promises. In the second case, the Theranos company owner and company president actively evaded considering the knowledge available to them.

A broken promise is therefore not a necessary condition for overpromising. The fulfillment of a promise cannot be the sole measure to classify a promise as an overpromise, much like a car crash does not automatically indicate reckless driving. Both cases could be influenced by many (unforeseen) factors. But
just as a car crash can lead to inquiries about reckless driving, an unfulfilled promise can instigate investigation into potential overpromising.

## Overpromises and deceptive promises

Theranos not only overpromised, it also made deceptive promises: It deliberately exaggerated assurances and misled funders in order to bring in investments. The promise was made both without taking into account the knowledge context, i.e., an over-promise, and without the aim of fulfilling it, i.e., a deceptive promise (Markovits 2011, p. 298). Although actors make promises with a specific aim, overpromises can arise for a number of reasons, such as sloppiness, routines learned from others and repeated uncritically, or overenthusiasm. When an overpromise is made with the aim to fulfill it, the promiser may fail to take the knowledge context into account, neglecting their epistemic and moral responsibility, but they are not purposefully deceiving the promisee (Markovits 2011, p. 298).

Scientific promises which are both deceptive and overpromising are sometimes thought of as 'strategic promises', made with the purpose of obtaining funding or creating support. In Theranos' situation, promises were strategically made to secure funding. Whether impossible promises made in grant applications without the aim of fulfilling them also fit this category depends on whether all the involved parties understand that the promises made are empty promises or not - i.e., it depends on the rules of the game and how they are understood by the audience.

## Evaluating promises

Investigating whether a promise can be fulfilled involves an evaluation of the plausibility of underlying inferences about the future, a common practice for assessing a variety of claims about the future (Fischer and Dannenberg 2021) and for distinguishing predictions worthy of consideration from those that are not. This is relatively straightforward for promises which the evaluator knows to be impossible based on their current knowledge. However, for promises made under conditions of information asymmetry, a systematic evaluation of future claims is required. This evaluation begins by determining which aspect(s) of an inference need to be clarified for the evaluator to enable a judgment (Fischer and Dannenberg 2021, pp. 8-9). To this end, several analytic tools are already available from argument analysis (Epstein 2013) and ethics of emerging technologies (Lucivero et al. 2011), but these are not specifically tailored to show how to question future-oriented scientific promises *based on the context of knowledge*.

Therefore, we propose here to question future-oriented promises in science and technology by identifying and evaluating dimensions of the context of knowledge, building on some of the cognitive dimensions identified by sociologist Ann Mische. Although Mische (2009) uses these dimensions descriptively, to analyze without judgement how futures are conceptualized, her

theory serves as a useful basis for the assessment of promises. We look at four dimensions of the context of knowledge, namely clarity, level of certainty, degree of control, and connectivity. Although we focus on promises in this article and not on promisers, it is important to note that for many dimensions, knowing who makes the promise is often useful for determining the plausibility of the promise in that regard, because different actors have, for example, differing degrees of control or track records.

## Clarity

Scientific promises are conveyed with differing clarity. Some are highly specific with regards to when the promise will be fulfilled, such as the promise that “[n]umerous newly designed, advanced materials and manufacturing processes will be built by 2015 using control at the nanoscale level” (Foster 2006, p. 229). Other promises are vaguer with regards to when the promise will be fulfilled: “In the business and investing world, the changes nanotechnology will bring in the next few decades will change the way people consume things” (Booker and Boysen 2011, p. 2). Note that the promise itself does not provide much clarity either. For example, it is unclear which type of strength is meant (tensile, compressive or shear), or which diseases will be detected.

## Decisiveness

Future-oriented promises are conveyed as assurances. Scientists promise that something *will* happen or that they *will* do something. If they do not want to convey such decisiveness, they can make other types of predictions instead, such as expectations or forecasts (De Wilde 2000, pp. 15–17). Previous work on scientific communication has documented the tendency of scientists in multiple fields to make more decisive statements inversely correlated with how scientific the outlet is (Bucchi 1998); the less scientific the outlet, the more decisive the statements.

Besides intended audience, various other genre features will influence the decisiveness of scientific promises, such as word limits. If a grant applicant has to specify how 100,000 dollars will be spent, a 1,000-word limit will allow for less nuanced promises than a 10,000-word one.<fnref n="1" />

Promises may also lose nuance over time, or statements about the future might start out as other types of predictions, but evolve to become promises, due to an increase in the conveyed decisiveness. In the 2007 popular science book *Nanotechnology 101*, repeated reference is made to a prediction by the National Science Foundation. The first reference explicitly states it as a prediction: “The National Science Foundation predicts that the global marketplace for goods and services using nanotechnol-

<footnote n="1">1 We thank Diego Gambetta for this example.</footnote>
ologies will be worth a trillion dollars by 2015” (Mongillo 2007, p. xvii). The second reference no longer states it as a prediction, but still does not convey an assurance, instead using the hedge word *could*: “By 2015, nanotechnology could be a $ 1 trillion industry” (Mongillo 2007, p. 3). However, almost immediately afterwards, this statement transforms into a promise, assuring the layman reader that “[a]s was stated earlier, the global marketplace for goods and services using nanotechnologies *will* grow to $ 1 trillion by 2015” (Mongillo 2007, p. 4, own emphasis).

## Degree of control

Promisers may also fail to account for factors that affect the degree to which promises are achievable, overestimating their own limited capacity to control future events. If scientists overstate their degree of control, promisees and other interested parties such as funders might further inquire into how the promisees assumes to have control and how they would act if it appears they do not.

In one grant application, researchers stated: “Through continual conversation with nanobiologists we will convince the community that what we have to offer is not just helpful, but necessary for the field to advance” (Bordignon et al. 2023). The promisees did not consider the degree to which others will comply; they made a promise that depends on the actions and beliefs of nanobiologists, over which they have limited control. They cannot guarantee the funders that nanobiologists will become convinced; that decision ultimately is up to the nanobiologists themselves. Additionally, the promisees cannot accurately predict how persuasive they will be in convincing enough individuals within the community to support their proposal.

Relatedly, the fulfillment of scientific promises about potential benefits is often conditional upon enthusiasm about the technology or intervention needed to bring about these supposed advantages. Many promises related to the possible benefits of these technologies or interventions can only be realized if the technology or intervention is embraced and implemented, over which the promisee has little to no control. Whether fulfillment of the promise is considered plausible then hinges on whether the assessor considers it plausible that the circumstances (will) favor implementation.

## Connectivity

Promise fulfilment is conditional on whether specific events occur. The following promise assumes economically and societally viable development of entirely new pharmaceutical systems: “In medical applications, nanomaterials will make self-regulating pharmaceutical dispensers compatible with biosystems so that they will not be rejected by the human body and will last many times longer in the corrosive and mechanically harsh environment of the human body” (Foster 2006, p. 229). The promise is implicitly connected to multiple inferences about the future, including a technological overhaul of drug delivery.

In other cases, promises explicitly depend on the fulfilment of other promises, or the occurrence of specific events. The

promise “Once the bacteria (or other mutated organisms) learn to live with nanotubes (carbon or non-carbon) they will start using these nano-tubes to beneficial purposes for themselves, perhaps to fight with other bacteria in the hunt for food or for play” (Khadkikar and Irani 2006), found in a patent, is dependent on the bacteria indeed learning to live with nanotubes, a scenario the authors try to make plausible in the preceding paragraph. The promise’s plausibility relies on the plausibility of the preceding scenario.

## Conclusion

Promises are signals that can be used to establish trust and acquire valuable resources. However, ignoring the context of knowledge in promise-making can result in overpromising. To facilitate the evaluation of promises, we have presented a conceptualization of overpromises, highlighting their relation to other forms of promises. In addition, we have shown how promisees can question scientific promises by evaluating the knowledge context.

While we have focused on the conceptualization of overpromises, fully examining overpromising requires considering the promisee's identity, normative dimensions of the promise, and its specific context. Historical research on habitual overpromisers, as well as conducting interviews with promisees, could offer further insights.

Furthermore, understanding why overpromising persists in certain contexts requires further research, especially when both the promisee and the promise seem aware of it. An investigation into such occurrences, such as within grant application procedures accepting inflated societal impact claims, would shed light on the underlying motivations and systemic factors perpetuating overpromising.

**Funding** • This work was funded by ERC NanoBubbles grant 951393.

**Competing interests** • The authors declare no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_51.png" /></figure>

STEFAN GAILLARD

is PhD candidate in philosophy and science stud-
ies at the Radboud University Institute for Science
in Society. His research focusses on overpromising
in nanobiology.

<figure><img src="image_52.png" /></figure>

PROF. DR. CYRUS MODY

is professor of the History of Science, Technology,
and Innovation at Maastricht University. He stud-
ies the role of industries such as oil production
and semiconductor manufacturing in the emergence
and growth of new technoscientific fields, especially
nanotechnology.

<figure><img src="image_53.png" /></figure>

DR. WILLEM HALFFMAN

is associate professor at the Radboud University
Institute for Science in Society since 2017. He
analyses changing practices dealing with research
integrity and error correction in science and how
these relate to innovations in the publishing system.
# Efforts against stem cell hype stuck in the logic of overpromising?: An essay on hype-conducive ways of doing ethics

Anja Pichl*,<fnref n="1" /> ID

**Abstract** • Studies on hype have had a strong focus on the role of science, media and markets in overstating potential benefits or risks of emerging science and technologies. Less attention has been paid to the role of ethics in creating or sustaining hype or alarmism. This research article focuses on how bioethical approaches as well as bioethicists' relationship towards science contribute to stem cell and organoid hype. How (if at all) may ways of doing ethics fuel exaggerated expectations and could ethics be done differently? Understanding hype-conducive ways of how ethicists engage with science and technology is of relevance not only for the broader ethical community but also for technology assessment and science and technology studies where an increasing interest in normative dimensions of their object of study has been observed.

**Stecken Bemühungen gegen Stammzell-Hype in der Logik überhöhter Versprechen fest?: Ein Essay über hype-fördernde bioethische Zugangsweisen**

**Zusammenfassung** • Studien zum Thema Hype haben sich stark auf die Rolle von Wissenschaft, Medien und Märkten bei der Übertreibung potenzieller Nutzen oder Risiken wissenschaftlicher und technologischer Entwicklungen konzentriert. Weniger Aufmerksamkeit wurde der Rolle der Ethik bei der Entstehung von Hype oder Alarmismus zuteil. Dieser Forschungsartikel befasst sich mit der Frage, wie bioethische

Zugangsweisen sowie das Verhältnis von Bioethiker*innen zur Wissenschaft zum Hype um Stammzellen und Organoide beitragen. Wie (wenn überhaupt) können bioethische Ansätze überzogene Erwartungen schüren, und könnte Ethik anders praktiziert werden? Ein besseres Verständnis, wie Formen der ethischen Auseinandersetzung mit Wissenschafts- und Technologieentwicklung zu Hype führen können, ist nicht nur für die Bioethik von Bedeutung, sondern auch für Technikfolgenabschätzung und STS, die ein wachsendes Interesse an normativen Dimensionen ihrer Forschungsobjekte zeigen.

**Keywords** • hype, stem cell research, organoids, bioethics, vision assessment

This article is part of the Special topic "Technology hype: Dealing with bold expectations and overpromising" edited by J. Bareis, M. Roßmann and F. Bordignon. https://doi.org/10.14512/tatup.32.3.10

## Introduction

Is there a way to analyze and communicate current technoscientific developments, their potential trajectories and normative implications without fueling hype? The ubiquity of promissory language and high expectations both within academic and public debate of recent scientific developments and technological innovations does not exactly raise hope that there is an easy path to find. This observation applies to research on science and technology from different fields such as science and technology studies (STS), technology assessment (TA) or bioethics, even though the ways in which they contribute to hype and the challenges of how to avoid it differ. This research article critically analyzes the role of bioethics (broadly conceived) in raising exaggerated expectations with regard to stem cell (SC) research

<figure><img src="image_54.png" /></figure>

<footnote>*Corresponding author: anja.pichl@uni-potsdam.de</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg,
University of Potsdam, Potsdam, DE</footnote>
and organoid technology. In contrast to the role of science and media, ethicists' contribution to science and technology hype has been rather neglected so far (apart from notable exceptions such as Hedgecoe 2010; Nordmann 2007). Ethicists have often been regarded as fueling what Kristen Intemann (2022) called hype's counterpart, alarmism. Critics also pointed to the role of self-interest in funding and legitimization of ethicists' own relevance, when they overstate potential harms of emerging technologies (Vinsel 2021), which Timothy Caulfield (2016) dubbed 'ethics hype'. Albeit related conditions and incentive structures profoundly shape bioethics, this research article can't do justice to them. It focuses more narrowly on how ethical approaches themselves might contribute to exaggerated expectations and whether ethics could be done differently. Can features of bioethical approaches as well as bioethicists' relationship to science lead ethicists to succumb to a logic of overpromising – ultimately compromising their own aims?

SC research is a suitable case study because of the prominent role of therapeutic promises and efforts to work against hype both from within the scientific community as well as by ethicists and policy makers. I will sketch some key aspects of SC hype, clarify the concept of hype based on Intemann (2022) and show that, notwithstanding prominent measures against and an increased awareness of the problem of hype, it recurs in the recent organoid ethics debate. This indicates that hype cannot be avoided by means of more cautious communication alone. Instead, the relationship of ethics and science, the performative role of expectations, visions and imaginaries, (often implicit) assumptions about science and society and the sociopolitical role of bioethics itself (Lettow 2011) need to be critically analyzed and partly reconfigured in order for ethicists to avoid contributing to hype as far as possible. Ethicists' reluctance to engage in these efforts and to develop a (self-)critical attitude can be interpreted as a sign of crisis of the profession. While ethics plays a minor role in hype dynamics, its understanding is relevant not only to the broader ethical community but also to TA and STS. Here, an ever-increasing interest in normative dimensions of science and technology development has been observed (Dusseldorp 2014; Kollek 2019; Nierling et al. 2021). The closer engagement with ethical issues rightly called for in these fields could benefit from avoiding pitfalls ethicists encountered and improve bioethics by illuminating its blind spots.

## Stem cell hype and countermeasures

Hype is usually broadly understood as raising unduly high expectations or exaggerating the relevance, usefulness, reliability, safety, prospects etc. of scientific findings or technologies (Caulfield et al. 2016). Therefore, it is often regarded as either a problem of science communication (Intemann 2022), be it with the general public, science funding institutions, investors or other audiences, or as a problem of how societal and institutional conditions shape science. The latter includes factors

such as pressures to publish and to develop clinical or commercial applications, media and marketing practices, public expectations and scientific bandwagon (Caulfield and Condit 2012, p. 210). Important sources of hype and misrepresentation of SC research have been attributed to the commercial sector with its direct-to-consumer advertising strategies (Petersen et al. 2017) and its “techniques of promissory marketing that offer a vision of the future that may never be realized” (Rajan 2006, p. 13) as well as to overly optimistic media portrayals of stem cells’ therapeutic potential and clinical translation timelines (Kamenova and Caulfield 2015; Mason and Manzotti 2009) where regenerative therapies seemed “just around the corner” (Lysaght and Campbell 2013, p. 256).

The metaphor of scientific breakthroughs is a reliable indicator of hype (Brown and Michael 2003) and has accompanied SC research at least since the first cultivation of human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) in 1998. It still features prominently in recent scientific and media portrayals of organoid research. In his analysis of SC promises and related metaphor use, Lawrence Burns coined the term “stem cell superhero” which expresses the widespread belief that stem cells have a “seemingly ‘magical’ capacity to heal virtually any disease” (Burns 2009, p. 429). It also emphasizes that “to summon them we must make difficult moral choices” and exerts pressure not to hinder researchers from learning to understand and control stem cells (Burns 2009, p. 427). This exemplifies the performative character of such metaphors and related visions that also feature prominently in ethical discourse. Also visions of immortality and reversing ageing were associated with SC research and “used to invent a mandate for action” in speculative ethics (Nordmann 2007, p. 33). Stem cell promises derive part of their appeal and strength from widely shared ideas about nature and the need to gain control over biological processes in order to use the body’s self-healing capacities conveyed in the “powerful image of regeneration under technological control, yet which is still being directed by nature’s “own dictates”” (Franklin 2004, p. 60). Ethicists often uncritically reproduced such images and metaphors, notwithstanding social science critique, e.g. of the metaphor of ‘clinical translation’, which suggests a one-directional transition from basic science to clinical application (Martin et al. 2008). ‘Clinical translation’ has also been identified as “one of the policy buzzwords of our era [...] drawing massive public and private investment into areas like stem cell research” (Lysaght and Campbell 2013, p. 255). Whether this concentration of funding was justified in view of other health needs and research interests or not, it enabled the rapid development of SC research. This provides an example of the positive effects hype can have. Apart from financial support, hype can also raise public awareness and literacy of science (Intemann 2022) and be used to involve broader audiences in ethical debate.

However, SC research doesn't seem to be one of the a-political sciences that permit “honest hype to make science public” (Nerlich 2013, p. 43). Stem cell promises fall on the fertile ground of unmet medical needs by desperate patients and relatives as well
as business actors who are keen to exploit societal expectations and hopes for cures. SC hype fosters a business model of private SC clinics offering unproven therapies for a broad range of conditions across the globe, putting patients' health and science's reputation at risk (Turner 2021). The "race to be the first nation/university/lab/scientist to unlock the (hyped up) promise of X, Y, or Z" (Nerlich 2013, p. 47) partly explains the many prominent instances of fraud as well as premature clinical translation in SC research (Daley 2012). Accordingly, more cautious communication strategies (Caulfield et al. 2016) and better public understanding of SC research (Mason and Manzotti 2009) have been called for and were introduced as a requirement of scientific integrity by the International Society of Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) in the 2016 report and retained in the 2021 update of their Guidelines (ISSCR 2021). Important efforts to improve SC science literacy and communication followed, but certain exaggerated assumptions about the state of research and the therapeutic applicability of stem cells and their derivatives seem to have become entrenched within the public imagination. This is at least indicated by the constantly high demand for unproven SC therapies and the massive increase in the number of clinics offering them in recent years in the USA (Turner 2021).

## The role of ethics in stem cell and organoid hype

But how did ethical discourse contribute to SC hype, if at all? In the early 2000s, therapeutic promises of SC research were often cited as a moral argument for funding, research-friendly regulation and for overcoming ethical quandaries in the ethical literature. In addition, the presumed therapeutic potential of adult stem cells or, after 2007, induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) was often contrasted with that of hESCs in order to present the SC type that was considered ethically less or not problematic by the respective parties as scientifically more promising and ethically preferable (Lysaght and Campbell 2013). In this way, bioethics contributed directly to stem cell hype by means of ethical argumentation.

Ethicists, who are usually perceived as disinterested and credible, thus provided resonance and legitimacy to therapeutic promises of SC researchers, science journalists and biotech investors. It is, however, not enough to look for explicit overstating of therapeutic potential and time frames. Hype – as a state of exaggerated expectations rather than the act of exaggerating – can also be caused by agenda setting, emphasis, omissions, lack of contextualization etc. (Intemann 2022). Due to

these factors and the dependence of hype on value judgements, instances of hype cannot be identified by empirical methods alone but require a normative concept of hype as elaborated by Intemann (Intemann 2022) in relation to science communication. She defines hype as an "inappropriate exaggeration [...] that depends on two sorts of value judgements: (1) judgements about the proper goals of science communication in specific contexts, and (2) judgements about what constitutes an 'exaggeration' in that context" (Intemann 2022, p. 280, emphasis in original). Hype is "likely to invoke or encourage false inferences or unreliable predictions" (Intemann 2022, p. 290) and obscures risks, whether intentional or not.

Applying this concept to bioethics (whose definition, aims and methods are admittedly contested), two goals appear most relevant for public bioethics following Adam Hedgecoe (2010, p. 165): (1) 'horizon scanning', i.e. to identify, analyze and address potential ethical issues and (2) non-legal regulation, e.g. by establishing norms of scientific conduct and processes of research oversight. Obviously, horizon scanning requires anticipation and going beyond current evidence, thus it inevitably contains a speculative element. This is problematic only if it hinders the goals of ethics according to the above. Horizon scanning must be distinguished from 'speculative ethics' that Alfred Nordmann (2007, p. 34) characterized as a "strategy which construes possibly emerging issues as if they were presenting themselves already" (Nordmann 2007, p. 34). Such an "if-and-then syndrome" (Nordmann 2007, p. 34) is also common in organoid ethics. A whole strand of debate focuses on ethical issues concerning the potential generation of consciousness in brain organoids (either in the petri dish or after transplantation into animal models). Thereby, like in the case of enhancement discussed by Nordmann, "considerations of the present are overwhelmed by the supposed imminence of a highly speculative future" (Nordmann 2007, p. 39) populated by conscious brain organoids. This constitutes a form of hype because, notwithstanding cautionary remarks regarding the speculative character of the brain organoid

> Bioethics contributed directly to stem cell hype
> by means of ethical argumentation.

debate, its mere existence and dominance in the organoid discourse convey the impression that the fervently debated future scenarios will (sooner or later) become reality and other ethical issues receive less attention. Resuming Intemann's (2022) normative account of hype, it seems obvious that relevant goals of ethics – horizon-scanning and regulation – are hindered thereby.

In contrast to such forms of indirect hype, explicit hype is sought to be avoided in the recent organoid ethics debate. Ethicists explicitly reflect their responsibility for not fueling hype and call for a cautious use of metaphors and choice of terminology as well as a restrained portrayal of potential applications of
organoid technology. Megan Munsie and colleagues for example state that “researchers need to avoid the hyperbole that are too often a hallmark of stem cell research and candidly discuss advances and limitations with the public” (Munsie et al. 2017, p. 944). Accordingly, they address technological limitations and challenges of current organoid research and criticize media reports for speaking of a ‘miniature human kidney’ “which linguistically obscures differences between organoids and organs” (Munsie et al. 2017, 942). Also, Bredenoord et al. (2017, p. 1) explicitly discuss the responsibility “to avoid inaccurate or incomplete representations and excessive expectations” in public communication and call for an “accurate, balanced, and respon-

havior of public and policy makers towards science, they are also deeply engrained and play a performative role in science itself as the sociology of expectations and other work in STS made clear (McNeil et al. 2017; Konrad et al. 2017). They shape the trajectories of science and technology development via agenda setting, coordination of activities, attraction and legitimization of funding and research interests etc. (Brown and Michael 2003). Though a critical assessment of the role of visions, imaginaries and promises is a desideratum and may reorient bioethics towards the present and actual problems (Nordmann 2007) and counteract hype, it is only rarely part of ethical analysis. A notable exception in the organoid ethics debate is a methodolog-

> Significant obstacles for a broader uptake of vision assessment in bioethics seem to arise from characteristics of bioethical approaches and from the relationship of ethics to science.

sive public representation of regenerative medicine and stem cell research” (Bredenoord et al. 2017, p. 6) in line with the ISSCR Guidelines (2021). Nevertheless, in the same paper they state that “cultured organoids hold great potential for replacing damaged tissue or even complete organs, a potential that has already been demonstrated in animal models” (Bredenoord et al. 2017, p. 5). In general, therapeutic promises still play a significant role in the organoid ethics debate, e.g. as an argument to continue contested research on cerebral organoids and embryo models. Are they instances of hype and insufficiently responsive towards a public that to a considerable extent already bought into inflated promises of SC cures? Due to the openness of the research process, it is difficult to draw a clear line between hype and realistic expectations of future developments. Also, different standards of caution may apply to public communication in contrast to scientific papers, because the professional community is supposed to be able to handle promissory language better than lay audiences. However, it seems inconsistent to argue that the commitment to careful communication counts only for publications addressing the broader public, because the ethical debate doesn’t take place in a vacuum and affects science and its social perception and conditions (Hauskeller et al. 2019), especially as ethicists are often perceived as neutral, knowledgeable and following high standards. Furthermore, ethicists themselves can also be misled about the likely benefits of a technology or the significance of a new research area which may distort their judgements.

## Vision assessment as a remedy?

Vision assessment (Lösch et al. 2021) has been proposed as a means against speculative ethics (Nordmann 2007). Visions, imaginaries and promises not only influence the attitude and be-

ical report on vision assessment concerning the use of organoids and organ-on-a-chip models in personalized medicine (Vogt et al. 2022). Significant obstacles for a broader uptake of vision assessment in bioethics seem to arise from characteristics of bioethical approaches and from the relationship of ethics to science.

Critics have long pointed out that and how features of ethical approaches contribute to narrowing the scope of bioethical inquiry and to a focus on potential consequences and downstream effects of scientific development (Hedgecoe 2004; Hilgartner et al. 2017) which often results in hope-, hype- and fear-debates. A narrow focus on biological entities, their (presumed or anticipated) properties and ethical issues often identified by scientists (Hedgecoe 2010) comes at the expense of more fundamental questions concerning processes of valorization and commodification of biological material, possible changes in the understanding of and relationship toward the body, social relations to nature and ways of life as Susanne Lettow (2011) pointed out for bioethical discourse in general. While leaving other sources of scientific understanding made available by historical, social and philosophical studies of science often aside, bioethicists tend to reproduce self-representations by scientists as a matter of fact and neutral basis for ethical examination.

Bioethicists thus often uncritically adopt scientists' aims and visions which obviously increases the risk of giving in to hype. In the organoid debate, an important goal and quality criterion of bioethical work seems to be to support organoid research: "[P]rocess and progress should not be hampered" (Munsie et al. 2017, p. 945) and ethicists seek to contribute to its social acceptance (Bredenoord et al. 2017). The goal of supporting scientific 'progress' and procuring public acceptance is certainly bound to ethical standards of acceptability and notions of responsible science, but most discussants do not make them ex-
plicit. Insoo Hyun (2017), for example, only specifies the goal of promoting ‘scientific progress’ by means of anticipation and avoidance of ‘moral controversy’, but does not further explain his understanding of scientific progress and underlying visions of a desirable future, the role of organoid research in building it and who might share it. Whose needs and future imaginaries are considered and in what way, whose are left out of consideration etc. is hardly ever examined in the organoid ethics debate. Instead, organoid ethicists tend to uncritically accept scientific visions and scenarios, whether they endorse or problematize them, such as the prospect of developing therapies or generating conscious organoids. Organoid ethicists even portrayed themselves as navigators who guide the development of organoid technology carefully into a seemingly separate sphere: society (Bredenoord et al. 2017). This ignores the complex and dynamic reality and intricacies of scientific development as inseparable part of social transformation processes in which ethicists are also actively involved (Lettow 2011) and the need for understanding its dynamics, conditions, framing and underlying visions, let alone for making efforts to shape them. The close and often uncritical relationship to science doesn’t seem to be widely perceived as a problem within bioethics, instead, calls for a closer integration of ethics with science are raised in the organoid debate (Hyun 2017). However, it seems obvious that on this narrow basis, both goals of horizon scanning and regulation cannot be properly achieved.

## Conclusion

Measures against hype such as avoiding promises and exaggerations in the portrayal of science and combining statements of future applications with reservations concerning technical limitations and scientific uncertainty are obviously important. However, they are insufficient for preventing hype as they do not address its roots. In the ethical discourse on organoids, lessons were learned from the SC debate in terms of overt hype, but not in terms of reflecting ethicists’ own attitude towards the life sciences and ways of ethical thematization that lead to ‘inappropriate exaggerations’ (Intemann 2022), missing the goals of bioethics. Better understanding and pulling out root causes of bioethical hype such as narrow views of science that separate it from its societal conditions and political dimensions could contribute to better bioethics. Ethicists have the responsibility to critically assess future imaginaries, visions, promises as well as dynamics and conditions of science and technology development, understand their performative role – and perhaps even use it for promoting ethically desirable developments. Methodologically, this requires critical examination and the opening up of bioethical approaches for closer cooperation with other disciplines, especially STS, TA and other strands of social and political science research and philosophy of science. It would be a practice turn that goes beyond merely integrating ethics with science.

**Funding** • This work received no external funding.

**Competing interests** • The author declares no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_55.png" /></figure>

ANJA PICHL

is a researcher at the Junior Professorship for Medical Ethics with a focus on Digitization, Faculty of Health Sciences Brandenburg, University of Potsdam. Her ongoing dissertation in philosophy investigates conditions of a meaningful practice turn in bioethics drawing on resources from philosophy of science, STS and TA.
# Chatbots als pädagogische Herausforderung für Schule und Unterricht

Johannes Gutbrod\*,<fnref n="1" /> ID, Britta Klopsch<fnref n="1" /> ID

**Zusammenfassung** • Chatbots und künstliche Intelligenz (KI) machen auch vor Schulen nicht halt. Sie gewinnbringend in pädagogische Settings zu integrieren, ist für Schulen und Lehrkräfte eine noch ungewohnte Situation. Dieser Beitrag setzt grundsätzliche pädagogische Aspekte von Schule in Bezug zur Digitalisierung und zeigt auf, wie die Herausforderung KI mit der pädagogischen Herangehensweise an Bildungs- und Erziehungsprozesse in Einklang gebracht werden kann.

**Chatbots as a pedagogical challenge for schools and teaching**

**Abstract** • Chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) do not stop at schools. Integrating them beneficially into pedagogical settings is still an unfamiliar situation for schools and teachers. This article relates the fundamental pedagogical aspects of schools to digitalization and shows how the challenge of AI can be reconciled with the pedagogical approach to educational processes.

**Keywords** • artificial intelligence, school, education, digitalization, action orientation

## Einleitung

Künstliche Intelligenz (KI) hält zunehmend unmittelbaren Einzug in das Leben der Menschen. Mit ChatGPT und anderen Bots wurden nun Systeme entwickelt, die durch künstliche neuronale Netzwerke komplexe sprachliche Daten verarbeiten können. Sie sind dazu fähig, unmittelbar auf Anfragen „eloquent“ erscheinende Antworten zu den unterschiedlichsten Themen“ (Albrecht 2023, S. 9) in vielfältiger Ausdrucksform zu verfassen. Von Computerprogrammen bis hin zu Gedichten kann KI unterschiedliche Textgattungen schreiben und ist dabei so gut, dass die KI-basierte Herkunft Lehrkräften wie Lernenden auf den ersten Blick nicht auffällt.

Diese Bandbreite an bearbeitbaren Themenfeldern führt zu großen Unsicherheiten im Bildungssystem (Belousova 2022). Chatbots scheinen für Lehrende wie Lernende fast universell nutzbar, das führt dazu, dass traditionelle Formen des (Auswendig-)Lernens und Prüfens, bspw. durch eine Hausarbeit, aktuell zunehmend in Frage gestellt werden.

Die Unwägbarkeiten, die sich damit verbinden, bedürfen einer pädagogischen Antwort. Wie soll die Institution Schule künftig in Anbetracht einer sich ständig weitentwickelnden digitalisierten, technisierten und virtualisierten Welt die Kinder und Jugendlichen unterstützen mit KI im allgemeinen und Chatbots im Besonderen umzugehen?

Dieser Frage soll im Folgenden aus pädagogischer Perspektive nachgegangen werden. Zunächst wird die ureigene pädagogische Aufgabe, das Erziehen und Bilden, erläutert. In einem zweiten Schritt wird die Technikfolgenabschätzung in eine pädagogische Perspektive gerückt, bevor eine pädagogische Handlungsorientierung für den Umgang mit KI den Beitrag beschließt.

## Die pädagogische Aufgabe von Schule

Unterricht ist ein Prozess, „in dessen Verlauf von Seiten des Unterrichtenden aus der Versuch unternommen wird, eine Erweiterung des gegebenen Wissens-, Kenntnis- und Fähigkeitsstandes auf Seiten des bzw. der Unterrichteten hervorzurufen“ (Terhart 2009, S. 102). Unterricht beschreibt folglich den päd-

<figure><img src="image_56.png" /></figure>

<footnote>* Corresponding author: johannes.gutbrod@kit.edu</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Institut für Schulpädagogik und Didaktik, Karlsruher Institut für Technologie, Karlsruhe, DE</footnote>
agogischen Modus, in dem Schulen arbeiten sollen. Jener umfasst den Zweiklang des Lehrens beziehungsweise Lernens und des Erziehens.

Als Erziehung lassen sich jene Prozesse beschreiben, „die den Menschen zu Autonomie und Mündigkeit hinleiten und ihm helfen, alle seine Kräfte und Möglichkeiten zu aktuieren und sich als selbstständige Person zu gestalten. Erziehung betrifft den Menschen dabei in seiner individualen [...], sozialen [...] [und] kulturellen [...] Dimension.“ (Böhm und Seichter 2018, S. 146). Der zugrundeliegende Lernprozess zielt auf Haltung. Eine Person wird durch eine andere geführt und dazu aufgefordert, autonom und mündig zu handeln. Sie soll selbstständig urteilen, um herauszufinden, was das Geforderte für das eigene Leben bedeutet und welche Entscheidungen zu treffen sind. Dabei verbindet die Person ihre moralische Haltung mit ihrer persönlichen Einstellung, die gemeinsam zu einer Handlung führen. Letztendlich führt Erziehung so zu einem mündigen Leben in Verantwortung (Benner und Brüggen 2004, S. 687).

Die Bildung einer Person umfasst das Zusammenspiel zwischen Wissen und Haltung, die sich ebenfalls in Handlungen ausdrückt. Sie erweitert das Ziel der Erziehung durch fachspezifische Inhalte und Kompetenzen. Um einerseits die persönlichen Talente, Stärken und Vorlieben erfahrbar werden zu lassen und andererseits auf eine Vielzahl späterer Berufe vorzubereiten, vermittelt die Institution Schule eine breite Allgemeinbildung. Das generelle Ziel der Institution Schule bleibt aus pädagogischer Perspektive somit notwendigerweise für die einzelne Person zunächst unbestimmt.

Im Zusammenspiel zeigt sich Bildung in einem immerwährenden Kreislauf: Wer gebildet ist, der bildet sich.

## Technikfolgenabschätzung aus pädagogischer Perspektive

Aus pädagogischer Perspektive sind künstliche Intelligenz und Chatbots kein gravierender Gamechanger (Albrecht 2023, S. 71), wie dies die Medien zeitweise suggerieren. Bei künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots handelt es sich – pädagogisch betrachtet – um einen weiteren Anlass, anhand dessen sich erziehen, bilden und letztendlich mündiges Handeln erlernen lässt. Die pädagogische Kernfrage lautet folglich: Was macht verantwortliches bzw. mündiges Handeln in Ansehung der Verwendung von künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots aus? Wenn Chatbots und künstliche Intelligenz zunehmend natürlicher Teil der Lebenswelt sind, muss die Schule eine Antwort geben wie sie eine Einbettung in diese Kultur der Digitalität (Stalder 2016) auch hinsichtlich einer Qualifizierung der Lernenden für spätere Berufe gewährleistet.

Dazu gehört zunächst die Kenntnis des Gegenstandes, in dessen Ansehung man verantwortungsvolle Entscheidungen treffen soll, also die Kenntnis von Chatbots und ihren Möglichkeiten, verbunden mit dem Wissen darüber, wie man diese in schulische Lehr-Lernsettings gewinnbringend integrieren kann. Neben dieser bildenden Dimension umfasst die pädagogische Perspektive auf Schule auch deren erzieherische Dimension. Dies bedeutet

> Was macht verantwortliches bzw. mündiges Handeln in Ansehung der Verwendung von künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots aus?

Dies ist gleichsam die größte Herausforderung für die Schule. Sie soll Heranwachsende nicht nur dazu bilden, in einer zukünftigen Gesellschaft leben zu können, sondern auch diese dazu befähigen die Gesellschaft aktiv mit zu gestalten. Da sich die Gesellschaft weiterhin wandeln wird, wird es notwendig werden, sich kontinuierlich auf unbekannte Situationen einzustellen und lebenslang Lernprozesse einzugehen. Der Bildungsbegriff greift dies auf, da er zweierlei Aspekte in sich vereint: Das Ergebnis und den Prozess. Die Ergebnishaf'tigkeit der Bildung zeigt sich in den jeweiligen Entscheidungen der Menschen als konkretes Tun. Bildung ist in dieser Perspektive zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt sichtbar. Die Prozesshaftigkeit der Bildung zeigt sich in der Planung, Durchführung und Reflexion der konkreten Handlungen. So kann im Nachhinein eine Handlung nicht ungeschehen gemacht werden, wohl aber die Beurteilung dieser, künftig anders zu handeln. Bildung als Prozess ist also stets fortlaufend, d.h. als retro- wie prospektive Beurteilung konkreten Handelns.

nicht nur, dass die Lernenden Verantwortung für ihr Lernen und ihre Handlungen übernehmen. Wahrlich mündig zu handeln bedeutet auch, sich der Konsequenzen des (eigenen) Handelns bewusst zu sein und damit die Folgen dieses Handelns abschätzen zu können. Gerade im Zusammenhang mit dem Einsatz von KI, des eigenen digitalen Fußabdruck, d. h. der passiv und aktiv erzeugten Datenspur im Internet, sowie der Nutzung von Chatbots für das Erledigen von Aufgaben, sind hier Kommunikationsprozesse notwendig, die bislang in Schulen vernachlässigt wurden.

Pädagogisch gesehen müssen Schüler:innen zunächst in die Lage versetzt werden, mit künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots umzugehen. Für die Diskussion um Bildung und Erziehung lohnt es sich, unterschiedliche Ebenen näher in den Blick zu nehmen, die die Auseinandersetzung mit digitalen Tools befördernd. Die Verschränkung dieser Ebenen trägt in einem zweiten Schritt dazu bei, eine schulische Lernumgebung zu schaffen, die es erleichtert, die Kultur der Digitalität in den Schulalltag
<figure><img src="image_57.png" /><figcaption>Abb. 1: Systemische Einflüsse auf Nutzung digitaler Tools.</figcaption></figure>

Quelle: Klopsch 2023, S. 95 in Anlehnung an Knackstedt et al. 2022, S. 9

mit einzubeziehen und Chatbots gewinnbringend zu nutzen. Zur Verdeutlichung der Ebenen dient ein systemtheoretisches Schalenmodell (Knackstedt et al. 2002, S. 9; Teubner 1997, S. 26). Es weist unterschiedliche (Sub-)Systeme aus, die miteinander in Einbettungsbeziehungen stehen (siehe Abb. 1).

Wenn alle Lernenden einen Zugang zum Internet in den Schalen erhalten, mit Laptops oder Tablets ausgestattet werden, erhalten sie die Möglichkeit der Anwendung digitaler Tools. Die Erweiterung des Anwendungssystems um den Menschen führt zu soziotechnischen Systemen, in denen Personen mit der Technik zielgerichtet interagieren (Ropohl 2009). Im Informationssystem findet nun eine individuelle Auseinandersetzung mit den Tools statt. Die Lernenden schauen Erklärvideos, bearbeiten Multiple-Choice-Aufgaben und nutzen Chatbots als Werkzeuge, bspw. um ganze (digitale) Texte zu verfassen, zum stlistischen Korrigieren, zum Übersetzen, zur Suche nach Synonymen, zur Strukturierung von Themen oder um Ideen für das eigene Schreiben zu erhalten (Mohr et al. 2023; Marx 2023; Albrecht 2023, S. 72).

Auf der nächsten Ebene arbeiten mehrere Informationssysteme zusammen. Für Lernende kann dies bedeuten, dass sie ihre Lernergebnisse oder (Lern-)Zwischenschritte digital zur Verfügung stellen, wodurch Lehrkräfte oder Peers jederzeit gezieltes Feedback geben können. Sie erhalten die Möglichkeit, zu sehen, wo andere stehen und woran sie gerade arbeiten. Dieser Zusammenschluss unterschiedlicher Informationssysteme bildet das Arbeitssystem, das durch die Umsetzung von miteinander verbundenen und ko-konstruktiven Arbeitsprozessen, auch und gerade in professionellen Lerngemeinschaften, große Bedeutung für die Entwicklung der individuellen Teilnehmenden aber auch der Schule bzw. des Bildungssystems in sich hat (Klopsch 2023).

Das Gesellschaftssystem befasst sich darüber hinausgehend mit „rechtlichen, politischen, ökonomischen, ökologischen und zusätzlichen sozialen Aspekte der Informationssystemnutzung“ (Knackstedt et al. 2022, S. 10), während das globale System sich mit Effekten der Globalisierung auseinandersetzt.

Im „Schonraum Schule“ (Wiater 2002, S. 156) wurde über die letzten Jahrhunderte hinweg vorwiegend lebensweltanalog gearbeitet. Dies bedeutet, dass die Handlungen im Unterricht zwar an der Realität abgebildet wurden, diese aber nicht nachhaltig beeinflussten: Wer bislang im Mathematikunterricht bei einer Textaufgabe einen Fehler beging, konnte die Berechnungen erneut anstellen, um seinen Fehler zu verbessern. Wer sich hingegen in der Arbeitswelt verrechnet, macht einen Fehler von weit größerem Ausmaß. Das Gesellschaftssystem war somit nur mittelbar mit der Schule verbunden.

Lernen im Zeitalter der Digitalität verändert diesen Schonraum Schule. Schulen, die das Lernen und Leben im 21. Jahrhundert ernst nehmen, setzen vermehrt auf interdisziplinäre authentische Aufgabenstellungen, die in die Lebenswelt der Lernenden hineinragen und diese auch beeinflussen (Sliwka und Klopsch 2022). Möglichst viele Ebenen des soziotechnischen Systems werden nun einbezogen. Dies verschiebt die traditionelle Rolle der Lehrkräfte. Waren sie bislang Expert:innen ihres Faches, deren Aufgabe hauptsächlich in der Vermittlung von Wissen bestand, werden jetzt andere Rollenzuschreibungen wichtig. Lehrkräfte unterstützen die Lernenden nun darin, Quel-
len zu nutzen, individuelle Lernwege anzulegen und Lernprozesse zu durchlaufen, die für sie persönlich wichtig sind, um sich selbst in der Welt zurechtzufinden. Darüber hinaus werden sie darin begleitet, mit anderen zusammenzuarbeiten und ihre Rolle in der Welt vorzubereiten. Um verantwortungsvoll zu handeln ist es demzufolge notwendig, bereits auf der Ebene des Informationssystems die Schüler:innen mit KI und Chatbots vertraut zu machen, diese aber nicht nur blind anwenden zu lassen, sondern auch deren Chancen aber auch Risiken zu verdeutlichen.

Gleiches gilt auch für die Lehrkräfte. Auch sie agieren in einem Informationssystem und müssen mögliche Folgen und Konsequenzen der Verwendung von KI und Chatbots für eine verantwortungsvolle Handhabung abzuwägen. Was es bedeutet,

Die pädagogische Herausforderung bleibt also bei allen Innovationen gleich: Ein bestimmtes Tool zu nutzen, darf nicht auf die reine Anwendung reduziert werden, sondern bedarf eines fachlichen Verständnisses auf dessen Grundlage mit dem Tool gehandelt wird.

Überträgt man diese Idee auf KI und Chatbots, dann sollten Schüler:innen durch die Nutzung zum (kritischen) Denken angeregt werden, so wie dies bereits in manchen Schulen praktiziert wird. In einigen Prüfungsformaten dürfen Schüler:innen „KI als Inspiration und Formulierungshilfe benutzen [...] – ganz offiziell“ (Spiewak 2023). Die eigene Denkanstrengung wird ihnen dabei nicht abgenommen, sondern erfolgt auf anderer kognitiver Ebene.

> Bei künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots handelt es sich – pädagogisch betrachtet – um einen weiteren Anlass, anhand dessen sich erziehen, bilden und letztendlich mündiges Handeln erlernen lässt.

wenn künstliche Intelligenz Big Data nach Mustern durchsucht, um passgenaue Werbung einblenden oder Nachrichtenfeeds auf die Interessen der Person anzupassen, bedarf einer Beurteilung. Das Problem, in einer Filterblase gefangen zu sein, wenn die Interaktion und gemeinsame Einschätzung auf Arbeitssystemebene ausbleiben, liegt auf der Hand. Erzogen wird in der Schule erst dann, wenn die Lehrperson „durch das Aufzeigen von Möglichkeiten, das Problematisieren von Inhalten bzw. Sachverhalten und Fragestellungen sowie das Hinweisen auf Notwendigkeiten und Ansprüche beim Zögling Wahrnehmungs-, Denk-, Handlungs- und Verhaltenspotentiale“ (Zirfas 2018, S. 39) entfaltet.

Nimmt man den Anspruch der erzieherischen Dimension von Schule ernst, so ergeben sich weitreichende Konsequenzen für die verschiedenen Unterrichtsfächer. Auch bei der Nutzung künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots darf die Frage nach der Haltung und einer „Veränderung bzw. Erweiterung von kognitiv-theoretischem Wissen, von sozio-moralischen Sollensanforderungen“ (Zirfas 2018, S. 39) und praktischen Handlungsformen nicht zu kurz kommen.

Überlegungen, aktuelle technische Möglichkeiten in den Unterricht zu integrieren sind jedoch nicht neu. Bereits Mitte der 1980er-Jahre entstand eine Diskussion zur Nutzung von Taschenrechnern in der Schule. Zu Beginn ihrer Entwicklung wurden sie als potenzielle Gefährdung mathematischen Denkens wahrgenommen und unterlagen besonderen Einschränkungen zur Nutzung im Unterricht (MKJS-BW 2014). Entscheidend ist aus pädagogischer Sicht, dass der Taschenrechner bestimmte Prozeduren erleichtern kann, das mathematische Denken jedoch nicht ersetzt. Wer nicht versteht, wie Mathematik funktioniert, wird auch den Taschenrechner nicht gewinnbringend einsetzen können.

Dies hat Konsequenzen für schulischen Unterricht. So tritt der Prozess der methodisch begründeten und erkenntniserweiternden Fragenstellung in den Vordergrund. Fragen stellen bedeutet nichts anderes, als über den Unterrichtsgegenstand methodisch nachzudenken. Auch dies ist keine radikal neue Auffassung.

Bereits Immanuel Kant sah es als die wichtigste Aufgabe an, die *richtigen* Fragen stellen zu können. „Es ist schon ein großer und nötiger Beweis der Klugheit oder Einsicht, zu wissen, was man vernünftigerweise fragen solle. Denn, wenn die Frage an sich ungereimt ist, und unnötige Antworten verlangt, so hat sie, außer der Beschämung dessen, der sie aufwirft, bisweilen noch den Nachteil, den unbehutsamen Anhörer derselben zu ungeheimten Antworten zu verleiten“ (Kant 1975, KrV:B83).

Der Pädagoge Alfred Petzelt greift diese Ansicht Kants auf, indem er das Fragen sogar als *motus mentis*, als grundlegende Denkbewegung, nobilitiert (Petzelt 2018). Der pädagogische Vollzug beginne, so Petzelt, mit dem Fragen. Erst wenn etwas frag-würdig erscheint, kann es zum Unterrichtsthema gemacht werden und dies können – besser müssen – eben auch die Folgen der Nutzung von technischen Neuerungen sein. Es scheint bspw. kein gängiges Wissen zu sein, dass die *kostenlosen* Dienste im Internet, mit persönlichen Nutzerdaten bezahlt werden.

Ebenfalls interessant für die Technikfolgenabschätzung ist die Frage nach der Bildungs- bzw. Chancengerechtigkeit (Faller 2019). Diese impliziert, dass alle Lernenden unterstützt werden, ihr individuelles Potenzial voll auszuschöpfen. Für Lehrkräfte bedeutet dies, adaptiv auf Lernbedarfe zu reagieren, „um allen Lernenden unabhängig von ihrer Herkunft und Lernausgangslage das Erreichen eines bestimmten Bildungsniveaus zu ermöglichen“ (Sliwka et al. 2023, S. 183). Der Einsatz von KI zeigt hier besondere Herausforderungen für Unterrichtssettings. Eine gewinnbringende Nutzung erfordert viel Eigenverantwortung.
tung und Selbständigkeit aber auch viel Vorwissen der Lernen-
den. Aspekte, die leistungsstarke Schüler:innen oft in sich ver-
einen. Leistungsschwächere Lernende sind dabei schnell über-
fordert, was dazu führt, dass diese Bildungsanlässe für sie wenig
fruchtbar sind (Spiewak 2023).

Zusätzlich problematisch scheint, sofern die Inhalte und Arbeiten von künstlicher Intelligenz gezahlt werden müssen, dass entscheidend ist, wieviel Geld Eltern dafür ausgeben können. Der Bildungserfolg der Kinder hängt dann einmal mehr vom persönlichen sozioökonomischen Status ab – ein Zusammenhang, der im deutschen Bildungssystem seit Jahrzehnten sehr ausgeprägt ist (OECD 2021).

Kritisch zu denken, Fragen zu stellen und Bildungsangebote zu erhalten, die man aufgrund seiner Leistungsfähigkeit produktiv nutzen kann, dies scheint ausschlaggebend, um die Möglichkeiten der KI gewinnbringend einzusetzen. Wie eine anschlussfähige pädagogische Handlungsorientierung aussehen kann, wird im Folgenden aufgezeigt.

Pädagogische Handlungsorientierung
in Ansehung künstlicher Intelligenz

Um Anregung zu finden, inwiefern Bildung in Zeiten tiefgreifen-
der Veränderung durch KI in der Schule gefördert werden kann,
lässt sich auf Gedanken zum *Erziehenden Unterricht* von Fried-
rich Herbart zurückgreifen, die dieser bereits 1806 formuliert
hat. Herbart gesteht in diesem Zusammenhang „keinen Begriff
zu haben von Erziehung ohne Unterricht; so wie ich rückwärts
[...] keinen Unterricht anerkenne, der nicht erzieht“ (Herbart
1982, S. 22). Wissen und Haltung und deren schulische Pendants
Bildung und Erziehung stellen für ihn eine unzertrennliche Ein-

Erziehung und Unterricht stehen in einer wechselseitig Ver-
wiesenheit. Wer erzieht, ohne zu unterrichten, der erklärt Hal-
tung ohne sachlichen Bezug. Es fehlen Wissen und Fähigkei-
ten, die sittliches Handeln nach sich ziehen könnten. Wer nur
sittliches Handeln *predigt*, bemächtigt sich der Person, da kein
plausibles und intersubjektiv nachvollziehbares Wissen vermit-
telt würden, das sittliche Handlungsmuster begründen könnten.
Erziehung mündet dann in einer blinden Übernahme der Hand-
lungsmaximen einer anderen Person, versetzt junge Menschen
aber nicht in die Lage, begründet entscheiden zu lernen. Um zu
erziehen und nicht zu dressieren, gibt es in der Schule verschie-
dene unterrichtsmethodische Konzeptionen. Eine dem erziehe-
rischen Prozess unabdingbare unterrichtsmethodische Sequenz
ist diejenige der Sinnorientierung.

Was damit gemeint ist, kann durch eine simple Frage verans-
schaulicht werden: *Was bedeutet das Gelernte für mich, meine
Mitmenschen und die Gesellschaft, in der ich lebe?* „Wo im
Unterricht dieses Prinzip nicht berücksichtigt, dem oder der Ler-
nenden also keine Möglichkeit eingeräumt wird, den Lernpro-
zess selbst zu überschauen und die gewonnenen sachlichen Ein-
sichten im Hinblick auf ihre Haltungs- und Handlungsrelevanz
selbst zu beurteilen, bleibt das Lernen defizitär“ (Rekus und
Mikhail 2013, S. 337).

Die Frage nach dem Sinn des Gelernten ist keineswegs tri-
vial und ebenso keine, in der KI eine Hilfestellung geben könnte,
die über das Aufzählen statistisch relevanter Inhalte hinausgeht.
Es handelt sich hierbei vielmehr um eine höchst individuelle
Betrachtung, die Urteilskraft erfordert. Zur Beantwortung die-
ser Frage müssen sich Personen über ihre Motive, Beweggründe
und Ansichten klar werden. Sie fällen Urteile und beurteilen
Sachverhalte nach individuellen Maßgaben. Zwar könnte eine
KI weitere Informationen liefern, neue Aspekte aufzeigen und

Schulen, die das Lernen und Leben im 21. Jahrhundert
ernst nehmen, setzen vermehrt auf interdisziplinäre
authentische Aufgabenstellungen, die in die Lebenswelt der Lernenden
hineinragen und diese auch beeinflussen.

heit dar und bedingen sich gegenseitig. So lässt sich die oben
bereits erwähnte inhärente Problemstellung von KI und Chat-
bots erst dann erzieherisch wenden, wenn neben der Einfüh-
rung, Erläuterung und Anwendung auch das Moment der kriti-
schen Reflexion hinzutritt. Erst wo den Schüler:innen aufgezeigt
wird, welche Veränderungen sich in ihrer Lebenswelt durch den
ungezügelten Einsatz von künstlicher Intelligenz und Chatbots
bspw. in der Bildbearbeitung oder in der Verbreitung von *fake
news* ergeben, können sie eigene Handlungsmaxime ausprägen
und auch einhalten. Und „gerade dieses für die Erziehung not-
wendige Moment leistet der Unterricht“ (Mikhail 2016, S. 80).

andere Sichtweisen anbieten. Die Entscheidung, wofür sich jede
Person entscheidet, obliegt jedoch immer dem Menschen selbst.

Ein Beispiel, auf diese Weise mit ChatGPT in Kontakt zu tre-
ten, könnte darin bestehen, dass Lernende zu zweit über einen
Prompt für ChatGPT nachdenken und diesen zunächst inhaltlich
diskutieren. Im Anschluss daran recherchieren sie mit dem Bot,
diskutieren die Ergebnisse, fügen sie ihrer eigenen Argumenta-
tionslinie hinzu oder verwerfen sie und teilen die Erkenntnisse
mit der Klasse (Dillard 2022).

Ein anderes Beispiel besteht darin, dass Lernende mit
dem Bot diskutieren, indem sie die Argumentationsseite und
ChatGPT den Gegenpart einnimmt. Auch hierbei lässt sich die eigene Meinung schärfen, Argumente reflektieren und tiefergreifend in ein Thema eintauchen.

Kein Mensch kann für einen anderen eine Entscheidung fällen bzw. eine Handlung übernehmen, noch weniger kann es ein digitales Tool. Es ist eine pädagogische Aufgabe, den Prozess der Sinnstiftung bei jungen Personen zu begleiten.

Bedeutend ist die Unabschließbarkeit dieses Prozesses. Werte bzw. Bewertungen sind keine absolute Setzung. Im Unterricht werden von der Lehrperson immer wieder Urteile von Schüler:innen eingefordert, denn „Werturteile werden nicht ohne Grund gefällt. Werte erheben einen Geltungsanspruch und müssen deshalb begründet sein“ (Rekus 1993, S. 221). Erst durch

> Kein Mensch kann für einen anderen eine Entscheidung fällen bzw. eine Handlung übernehmen, noch weniger kann es ein digitales Tool.

die Begründung kann ein intersubjektives Verständnis entstehen. Ferner darf nicht verkannt werden, dass Lehrpersonen ihre Schüler:innen zur Beurteilung immer wieder auffordern, um im Angesicht ihres Wissens „neu gewonnene Werturteile selbst kritisch zu prüfen und dieses Wissen in sich ändernden Situationen vernunftgemäß einzusetzen“ (Gutbrod 2018, S. 219). Auch hier lassen sich Chatbots als Gegenspieler gut einsetzten – immer vor der Folie, sich gewahr zu sein, dass der Anlass die eigene Entwicklung ist.

Zusammenfassend zeigt sich: In Zeiten zunehmender Verstrickung des weltweiten sozialen Lebens, der Akzeleration der Kommunikation und der Überhandnahme von täglichen Entscheidungen, sollte Urteilsfähigkeit durch Bildung das erklärte Ziel aller unterrichtlichen Bemühungen sein. Wer künstliche Intelligenz für Online-Recherche, Hausarbeiten, Referate oder Ähnliches verwenden möchte, muss zuerst einmal in der Lage sein, die richtigen Fragen zu stellen. Ohne konkrete Fragestellung kann künstliche Intelligenz keine Antworten liefern. Oder anders ausgedrückt: Lediglich eine gebildete Person kann die erkenntniserweiternden Fragen stellen und die Antworten auf den eigenen Horizont und das eigene Handeln beziehen. Dies wiederum erfordert Urteilsfähigkeit und eine Begründung von Entschlüssen, um fremden Antworten und Ansichten nicht ausgeliefert zu sein. Urteilsfähigkeit erreicht man ausschließlich durch Bildung und nicht durch die Chatanfragen an künstliche Intelligenz.

**Funding** • This work received no external funding.

**Competing interests** • The authors declare no competing interests.

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<figure><img src="image_58.png" /><figcaption>DR. JOHANNES GUTBROD</figcaption></figure>

ist seit 2017 promovierter Erziehungswissenschaftler und studierte Germanistik, Geographie, Sport- wissenschaften und Pädagogik am Karlsruher Institut für Technologie (KIT). Derzeit arbeitet er als Lehrer sowie als wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am KIT.

<figure><img src="image_59.png" /><figcaption>PROF. DR. BRITTA KLOPSCH</figcaption></figure>

ist seit 2020 Professorin für Schulpädagogik, KIT. Ihre Forschungsschwerpunkte liegen in der Schulentwicklungs- und -systemforschung, Ausprägungen kooperativer Professionalität von Lehrkräften sowie der (kulturellen) Unterrichts- entwicklung.

itas

Institute for
Technology Assessment
and Systems Analysis

<figure><img src="image_60.png" /></figure>

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

<figure><img src="image_61.png" /></figure>

oekom
science

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RESEARCH ARTICLE

# Mirke Neighbourhood Panel:
Accompanying research
for the Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22

Franziska Stelzer*<fnref n="1" /> Ⓓ, Franziska Pennekamp<fnref n="1" /> Ⓓ, Lea Kings<fnref n="2" /> Ⓓ, Melina Freudenthal<fnref n="2" />

**Abstract** • The international architecture competition Solar Decathlon Europe was held in Wuppertal in 2022 and focused on sustainable building and living in the city. The student teams participating in the competition developed buildings that would enable climate-friendly living and be tailored to the “Mirke” district in Wuppertal and the individual needs of the residents in this neighborhood. Not only the neighborhood was the focus of the competition, but also the residents of the Mirke district were involved in the project through a neighborhood panel. As part of the Mirke neighborhood panel, three survey waves were conducted between May 2021 and August 2022. The results and insights gained from the neighborhood panel were incorporated into the project and shared with the architectural teams participating in the competition. In addition, the results were shared and discussed with the urban development department of the city of Wuppertal, local initiatives, and other partners in the neighborhood.

**Mirke Quartierspanel:**
Begleitforschung zum Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22

**Zusammenfassung** • Der internationale Architekturwettbewerb Solar Decathlon Europe fand 2022 in Wuppertal statt und beschäftigte sich mit nachhaltigem Bauen und Wohnen in der Stadt. Die am Wettbewerb teilnehmenden Studententeams entwickelten Gebäude, die ein klima-

freundliches Wohnen ermöglichen und auf den Wuppertaler Stadtteil „Mirke“ und die individuellen Bedürfnisse der Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner in diesem Quartier zugeschnitten sein sollten. Nicht nur das Quartier stand im Fokus des Wettbewerbs, sondern auch die Bewohnerinnen und Bewohner der Mirke wurden über ein Quartierspanel in das Projekt eingebunden. Im Rahmen des Mirker Quartierspanels wurden zwischen Mai 2021 und August 2022 drei Befragungswellen durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse und Erkenntnisse aus dem Quartierspanel flossen in das Projekt ein und wurden mit den am Wettbewerb teilnehmenden Architekturteams geteilt. Darüber hinaus wurden die Ergebnisse mit dem Amt für Stadtentwicklung der Stadt Wuppertal, lokalen Initiativen und anderen Partner*innen im Quartier diskutiert.

**Keywords** • panel survey, neighborhood survey, city development, energy-efficient refurbishment, citizen participation

## Introduction

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. Cities in particular have a key role to play in climate protection (IPCC 2023). According to the recent IPCC report urban areas are home to 4.2 billion people (IPCC 2023, p. 909), the majority of the world's global primary energy and emit between 50 and 60 percent of the world's total greenhouse gases (Khor et al. 2022; Kraas et al. 2016). At the same time, cities are particularly hard hit by the consequences of global warming for example, rising temperatures and heat stress, rising sea levels, storm surges, and extreme weather events (IPCC 2022). Also, the growing population faces a shortage of affordable housing (Kraas et al. 2016). By 2030, it is estimated that 250 million new housing units will be needed in the 12 countries that are home to 61 percent of the world's total population. This leads to an urgent need for action to optimise existing urban structures and raise awareness of sustainable building and renovation.

<figure><img src="image_62.png" /></figure>

<footnote>* Corresponding author: franziska.stelzer@wupperinst.org</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Research Division Sustainable Production and Consumption, Research Unit Innovation Labs, Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt und Energie gGmbH, Wuppertal, DE</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² School of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Wuppertal, DE</footnote>
This topic is addressed by the Solar Decathlon Europe (SDE), an international student competition about sustainable building and living in the city. It has taken place every two years since 2010. In 2022, the SDE was held in Germany for the first time. The German SDE edition especially focused on the challenges of sustainable energy transitions in urban contexts, while exploring opportunities for the revitalisation of building stock that work toward reducing the carbon footprint. Reusing, evolving, building up and re-defining existing dwellings were the central architectural tasks, whilst resource efficiency, sufficiency, climate protection and closed-life-cycle construction were central themes. Sixteen student teams constructed demonstration units and competed in the SDE 21/22 exhibition area in Wuppertal, Germany. Wuppertal was not only site of the competition, in particular a district of the city was subject of the designs – the Mirke district. This means, the teams of the competition developed buildings that enable climate-friendly living tailored to the district “Mirke” and the individual needs of the residents in this neighbourhood. With its building- and energy-related challenges and also social problems, this district is a typical representation of many urban districts in Europe (Voss and Simon 2023) and therefore provided the ideal environment for the competition.

As part of the SDE 21/22, a neighbourhood panel was being set up as accompanying research and focused on the following research questions:

1. How do the residents perceive the living conditions in their neighbourhood and the development of the neighbourhood?

2. How does the SDE 21/22 affect the neighbourhood residents?

3. What are the residents' expectations from the SDE 21/22 for their neighbourhood and the exhibition area in the future?

Three survey waves were conducted as part of the Mirke neighbourhood panel between May 2021 and August 2022. The results and insights gained through the neighbourhood panel were shared with the architectural teams of the competition. By participating in the Mirke neighbourhood panel, the citizens provided insights into their routines and attitudes and shared their views on local challenges, transformation processes and important future issues.

# Design and methods

## Panel development and structure

All households (approx. 4,000) in the Mirke neighbourhood received a postal invitation to the neighbourhood panel from the City of Wuppertal in April 2021. A total of 1004 people accepted the invitation and registered for the Mirke neighbourhood panel in the recruitment phase. Just under half (461 people; response rate: 45.9%) took part in the first survey in September 2021. This response rate is slightly higher than average (Wu et al. 2022). In the second survey wave in April 2022, 390 people took part (response rate: 38.8%). In the third survey wave in August

2022, 376 people took part (response rate: 37.4%). Recruitment, first and second wave were carried out before the SDE 21/22, the third wave was carried out after the event.

The surveys were generally carried out digitally, but could also be completed on paper, if desired. In addition, it was possible to fill out questionnaires at the exhibition area in preparation close to “Nordbahntrasse” and during on-site recruitment activities. This opportunity was offered irregularly on weekday afternoons and at weekends.

**Incentives:** Incentives were a key element of the survey. More than 100 vouchers for local gastronomy, cultural and leisure time offers were raffled among the participants upon successful registration. In addition, after completing the first survey, the so-called “Meine Mirke Pass” was handed out (figure 1), with which the participant could get three free drinks at local cafés and restaurants in the Mirke neighbourhood as well as other benefits in the region. To create renewed incentives, this offer was extended before the second and third wave.

**Communication activities:** To increase visibility of the survey, it was accompanied by video, poster, television and print campaigns. Also, results of the first wave were publicly exhibited at three locations in the Mirke neighbourhood: in “Rathausgalerie” on the subject of living, in “Ein Quadratkilometer Bildung” on the subject of neighbourhood life and in “Café Kinderwagen” on the subject of mobility.

## Contents of survey waves

The recruitment survey asked about aspects such as size of apartment/house, number of living spaces and demographic variables such as gender, age and employment situation. In addition, language preferences (possible options were German, English, Turkish) for completing the surveys were recorded. Also, there was the option of naming desired topics for future surveys.

The contents of the first survey wave included the place attachment-scale of Raymond et al. (2010), social cohesion-scale

<figure><img src="image_63.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1: Meine Mirke Pass.</figcaption></figure>

Source: © SDE 21/22
of Tackenberg et al. (2020) environmental awareness-scale of Geiger and Holzhauer (2020) and renovation approval-scale of Schempp (2013). Other aspects asked were: satisfaction with the living conditions in the Mirke neighbourhood, key factors for the choice of the living environment, personal activities in the neighbourhood, means of transport used, housing constellation and housing space, and attitude towards space sufficiency.

The *second survey* focused on the one hand on mobility and parking, including various future scenarios and solutions for mobility. On the other hand, aspects such as gentrification of the neighbourhood (using the scale of Üblacker and Lukas (2019)), renovation measures carried out and civic engagement (using the scale of BMFSFJ (2017)) were assessed.

The *third survey* was conducted after the main event phase of the competition “Solar Decathlon Europe 21/22” in the Mirke neighbourhood and served both to capture panellists’ evaluation of the event and to post-measure indicators such as place attachment, environmental awareness, mobility behaviour, and work and housing preferences.

Overall, civil society actors in the Mirke neighbourhood were involved in the conception of the panel before starting and during its course.

a registered partnership are 31.9%. Also, a large majority of participants have either a university education (tertiary level; 48.5%) or a (higher) secondary education (upper secondary level; 40.8%). 62.4% of respondents were employed; a smaller proportion reported being in education or training schemes (17.4%) at the time of the survey. The monthly net household income for the majority of respondents was between 2000€ and 4000€ (37.9%) or between 1000€ and 2000€ (24.0%). 22.7% of the participants had lived in the Mirke neighbourhood for more than 20 years.

**Place attachment and environmental awareness:** Overall, the participants feel quite connected to the neighbourhood (mean = 2.8; 0 = no place attachment at all; 4 = strongly attached to the Mirke neighbourhood). Also, when asked whether they like living in the Mirke neighbourhood, the majority of participants expressed (very) strong agreement (90.5%). The neighbourhood relations were rather good to very good ("I know some of the neighbours more closely and they help each other out sometimes", "I maintain friendships with some neighbours"; 67.8%). Also, the majority of respondents rated intercultural coexistence in the neighbourhood (rather good/very good: 76.1%) and social cohesion positively (rather good/very good: 57.6%). Environmental awareness was generally high (mean = 3.0; 0 = not at all environmentally aware; 4 = very aware) among respondents in the Mirke neighbourhood.

# Results

## Weighting of cases

In order to check the representativeness of the participants for the Mirke neighbourhood, the data was compared with official statistics and then weighted (figure 2). By weighting a sample, the sample profile of the study can be approximated to a desired profile, such as the underlying population (Bethlehem 2008). The poststratification weights in the present sample were created using information on age, gender and migration background. The poststratification weights also adjust for unequal selection probabilities (design weights).

## Descriptive results

### First survey wave [n = 461]

**Demographics:** The number of male and female participants was almost equally distributed (51.2% male, 47.7% female, 1.0% diverse). 57.9% of the participants were between 16 and 44 years old and 13.3% stated that they were over 65 years old. A majority stated that they were currently unmarried (59.2%). Married or in

<figure><img src="image_64.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 2: Weighting of sample after the third wave.</figcaption></figure>

Source: authors' own compilation
**Mobility:** The majority of participants stated that they have a driving licence themselves (74.0%). In addition, 54.0% say they always have permanent access to a car and 72.4% have at least one car in their household. Only a small proportion of respondents (15.0%) are members of a car-sharing provider. In terms of transport use, car use in the Mirke neighbourhood is relatively balanced: While 45.8% of respondents said they used their car daily or several times a week, 54.2% said they rarely or never relied on their car. Car sharing was again not used by the majority (98.0%). Public transport was used frequently (daily or several times a week) by 40.7% of the participants at the time of the survey. Walking, on the other hand, was much more common: Around 83.7% stated in the survey that they covered distances exclusively on foot every day or several times a week.

**Satisfaction with flat size and housing situation:** A majority of respondents stated that they currently live in a rented flat (79.3%) and less frequently in a condominium (14.8%). The average number of rooms is 2.9 rooms and the average living space per person is 45.1 sqm. Most of the participants live with one other household member (38.1%) or alone (32.5%). Also, the majority of respondents are (very) satisfied with their housing situation (79.0%). Only a very small proportion stated that they were (very) dissatisfied with their housing situation (3.7%). The majority of the participants felt that the size of the flat was just right (59.9%) and 27.7% tended to feel that it was rather/much too small.

In the first survey, the possibility was given to name desired topics for future surveys. The most frequent mentions related to mobility and parking, which were then integrated as a main topic in the second survey.

## Second survey wave [n = 390]

**Mobility station, neighbourhood hub and neighbourhood garage:** Mobility stations link different means of transport in one place, enabling passengers to choose flexibly between public transport, sharing and the like. 84.1% of respondents rated the idea of a mobility station as good to very good. Also, 62.6% of the people said they could well/very well imagine using a mobility station. In addition to mobility services, neighbourhood hubs integrate, for example, parcel service functions, local supply facilities or bicycle repair modules. At the same time, it can create a new meeting place for local residents. Most respondents rated the idea of a neighbourhood hub (88.8%) and also the idea of a neighbourhood garage (83.8%), which is located near residential houses and apartments and is intended to provide space for all vehicles belonging to the residents of a neighbourhood, as good to very good. When evaluating different scenarios for solving the parking problems in the neighbourhood, the installation of a mobility station and neighbourhood hub was named as the best solution, the installation of a neighbourhood garage as the second-best solution, and the creation of additional free residents' parking in the neighbourhood as the third-best solution.

**Energy-related building renovation:** The respondents were asked which energetic building refurbishments have been done since 2000. 29.0% declared to have modernised the heating system largely or completely, 24.1% replaced old windows (largely or completely) and insulation was installed by 22.7% (largely or completely). Under 5.0% declared "other" refurbishments, the use of renewable energy for heating or an installation or the renewal of a ventilation system (largely or completely).

**Housing and satisfaction with individual housing factors:** Most participants have not changed their housing situation since the first survey wave (85.8%) and did not plan to do so (62.0%). Satisfaction with individual factors of housing varied widely among the factors surveyed. Most people were particularly satisfied with their apartment size (86.5% (rather/very) satisfied), their house community (74.1% (rather/very) satisfied), floor plan or room layout (84.6% (rather/very) satisfied), number of rooms (84.7% (rather/very) satisfied), and balcony or terrace (70.0% (rather/very) satisfied). Satisfaction with parking spaces for cars and bicycles, shared areas and the energy condition of the building was rather poor.

**Gentrification:** Gentrification was surveyed by a scale of 10 questions. The respondents assessed the gentrification tendencies with a mean of 2.1 on a range from 0–4 (0: no perception of gentrification; 4: strong perception of gentrification). Thus, there is an ambiguous result with a slight tendency towards a perception of gentrification.

**Civic engagement:** 28.9% of the participants stated that they are civically engaged at least once a week. About the same number of participants said they never get involved (31.7%). Most of the participants are active members of a sports club. 30.0% of the participants are passive members of professional associations. 21.0% of the participants specify that they are passive members of a church and other religious communities. In addition, 11.2% of the participants are active in music clubs or theatre groups. Also, 11.2% of the participants are actively involved in an ethnic community.

## Third survey wave [n = 376]

Of the participants in the neighbourhood panel, 71.0% attended the SDE 21/22 event between June 10 and June 26 2022, and most of them enjoyed the exhibition area along the "Nordbahntrasse" (90.6% rather/very much liked it). To assess panellists' point of view they were asked to assess statements such as "I will try to transfer ideas from SDE 21/22 into my own life." From the respondents' point of view, the information about the individual buildings was presented in an understandable way (62.4% (rather) agree). Around 70.0% of the respondents stated that hosting the SDE 21/22 in the city of Wuppertal will have a positive benefit for the Mirke neighbourhood and also that they believed the exhibition and event area will remain exciting in the