Leadership work in public AI-projects between technological hope and organizational realization

Kunstig Intelligens (eng. forkortelse, AI) bringer løfter om at kunne løse mange af de problemer, den offentlige sektor har kæmpet med i årtier. Ofte opfattes AI her som en mere eller mindre færdig og stabil ”ting”, der er klar til at blive implementeret i organisationer, når man beslutter sig for det. Når vi iagttager et offentligt AI-projekt ud fra et CCO-perspektiv via begreberne dislokal og presentificeret, fremstår AI som et sociomaterielt sammenvævet og situeret fænomen, som forandrer sig over tid, og vi kan derfor stille spørgsmålet om, hvilke former for situeret ledelsesarbejde der udfolder sig, når organisationer beslutter sig for at anvende AI. Vi har gennemført etnografiske observationer over halvandet år i et dansk, tværkommunalt AI-projekt, og analysen heraf viser, at AI-digitalisering blandt andet realiseres gennem forhandlinger af, hvad AI er og kan være. Disse forhandlinger indebærer et ledelsesarbejde, der dog i vid udstrækning er usynligt i den forstand, at det er undervurderet og overset i mange af de fremstillinger, der fremhæver AI som en færdig løsning.Artificial Intelligence (AI) brings promises of alleviating many of the problems the public sector has been confronted with for decades. AI is often perceived as a turn-key and stable “thing”, ready to be implemented in organizations when these decide to do so. Observing an AI-project from a Communication as Constitutive perspective, AI appears as a sociomaterially inter-woven and situated phenomenon changing over time. We can thus pose the question as to which forms of situated leadership work unfold when organizations decide to use AI. We have carried out ethnographic observations during one and a half year in a Danish, cross-municipal AI-project and the analysis shows that AI-digitalization is realized – among other things – through negotiations of what AI is and can be. These negotiations include leadership work which is to a large extent invisible as it is undervalued and overlooked in many of the accounts purporting AI as a turnkey solution