ABSTRACT
What are futures in our uncertain times? How do emerging technologies participate in the anticipatory modes of contemporary life? In this chapter, I interrogate the relationship between emerging technologies, possible futures and uncertainty. Emerging technologies are implicated in future predictions, claims and hype. But, in reality, despite these ambitions they often fail to emerge or become ubiquitous. I critically review the futures industry, future visions and the flaws in the technologically deterministic, solutionist and gendered narratives they advance. I call for researchers to learn from the everyday to understand the modes of anticipation and possible futures that realistically come about in life. I argue that theorising futures as uncertain, ongoing, emergent and never reached, and engaging critical renderings of existing concepts of trust, hope and crisis should underpin our next steps in this field.
