Fostering Design-Policy Collaboration through Contestation: An Adversarial Futuring Method

2026-03-30

AI Summary

This study addresses the urgent need for deeper collaboration between design and policy domains in response to sociotechnical tensions arising from emerging technologies. It proposes “Adversarial Futuring,” a workshop methodology that employs structured scenario simulations and role-based adversarial engagement to stimulate critical dialogue between design and policy perspectives. By legitimizing extreme future scenarios while grounding policy reasoning in empirical realities, this approach bridges speculative exploration with pragmatic governance. Empirical application in the autonomous driving domain demonstrates its efficacy in uncovering dynamic risks, translating abstract policy principles into concrete situational contexts, and revealing strong potential for reuse and cross-domain adaptability.

Abstract

Emerging technologies introduce sociotechnical tensions that call for closer collaboration between technology design and policy. In this work, we introduce Design-Policy Adversarial Futuring, a scenario-based workshop method that supports design-policy engagement by structuring contestation between design and policy perspectives. We report on a workshop conducted in the autonomous mobility domain with 12 HCI researchers, used to explore and demonstrate the method in practice. The workshop illustrates how the adversarial futuring method can surface shifting harms, translate policy abstractions into situated use, and legitimise extreme ideas while maintaining grounded policy reasoning. This work contributes a reusable, exploratory method for supporting HCI-policy collaboration through contestation, which can be adapted across emerging technological domains.

Problem

• design-policy collaboration
• sociotechnical tensions
• adversarial futuring
• emerging technologies
• policy reasoning

Innovation

• adversarial futuring
• design-policy collaboration
• sociotechnical tensions
• scenario-based workshop
• HCI-policy engagement