Artificial Intelligence in fast-response organizations: Utopic and dystopic reconciliation

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming organizations’ work practices and the management of it has piqued IS scholars’ attention. IS scholars have explored the factors that affect AI use and practice fields that emerge from its use in organizations. Our study examines how fast-response organizations’ actors perceive AI implementation in their workplace. Based on an interpretive qualitative study, we find that, first, police professionals have AI utopic and dystopic narratives. Utopic narratives surround AI’s transformational and utilitarian value while the dystopic narratives about AI in their work include AI-caution and AI deontological issue. Second, our preliminary findings reveal fostering AI transparency and expanding AI conversations as temporal reconciliation mechanisms to the utopic and dystopic narratives. This paper extends AI management by examining the phenomenon in fast-response organizations and brings to attention the utopic and dystopic views of police professionals that policymakers need to consider while attempting to regulate AI in policing.