Questionable devices: applying a large language model to deliberate carbon removal

Waller, Laurie, Moats, David, Cox, Emily ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8169-3691 and Bellamy, Rob 2024. Questionable devices: applying a large language model to deliberate carbon removal. Environmental Science & Policy 162 , 103940. 10.1016/j.envsci.2024.103940

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Abstract

This paper presents a device-centred approach to deliberation, developed in deliberative workshops appraising methods for removing carbon dioxide from the air. Our approach involved deploying the Large Language Model application ChatGPT (sometimes termed “generative AI”) to elicit questions and generate texts about carbon removal. We develop the notion of the “questionable” device to foreground the informational unruliness ChatGPT introduced into the deliberations. The analysis highlights occasions where the deliberative apparatus became a focus of collective critique, including over: issue definitions, expert-curated resources, lay identities and social classifications. However, in this set-up ChatGPT was all too often engaged unquestioningly as an instrument for informing discussion; its instrumental lure disguising the unruliness it introduced into the workshops. In concluding, we elaborate the notion of questionable devices and reflect on the way carbon removal has been “devised” as a field in want of informed deliberation.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	1462-9011
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 November 2024
Date of Acceptance:	28 October 2024
Last Modified:	04 Dec 2024 10:26
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/173738

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