A Technological Smartness All Over the Place: Small‐Scale Thing‐Power Experiments With Wider Inclusive Ambitions

Abstract

We live in a societal realm where robotics, artificial intelligence, and digitalization are strongly reshaping our futures. Technological progress has created multiple possibilities. However, the unequally divided impact of technological progress reminds us of the danger of an uncontrolled detonation of technological smartness in society. Some of its experienced and anticipated effects are most likely undesirable. In this thematic issue, we present a compilation of small‐scale experiments that help us think through the multiple challenges of a fast‐evolving techno‐mediated society. It sits on the cross‐road between resisting technology or insisting on it in order to create a more socially inclusive sustainable society. The technological "smartification" of our society reshapes our notion of what it means to be human in the complex assemblage with non‐human and other‐than‐human agents we are currently involved in. But it is also a catalyst for intelligent acts of human creativity that will strongly shape our collective future.