TY - JOUR AU - Light, Ben PY - 2016/06/11 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - The rise of speculative devices: Hooking up with the bots of Ashley Madison JF - First Monday JA - FM VL - 21 IS - 6 SE - DO - 10.5210/fm.v21i6.6426 UR - https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/6426 SP - AB - <p>I attend to two areas of increasing significance in relation to Web 2.0 since its announcement in 2005. The first is a focus on the non-human in digital media research, and the second is the normalisation of dating apps in society. Building upon ideas from speculative design and speculative method, I introduce the idea of speculative devices, those things that are set in place based on a conjecture of an outcome. Drawing upon a case study of Ashley Madison, generated using a walkthrough method and analysis of media coverage, I demonstrate how the speculative devices of bots and profiles can operate, and why. I argue we need to give careful thought to how our research and practice is understood, and conducted where speculative devices are concerned.</p> ER -