AI policymaking as drama:stages, roles, and ghosts in AI governance in the United Kingdom and Canada

As two researchers faced with the prospect of still more knowledge mobilisation, and still more consultation, our manuscript critically reflects on strategies for engaging with consultations as critical questions in critical AI studies. Our intervention reflects on the often-ambivalent roles of researchers and ‘experts’ in the production, contestation, and transformation of consultations and the publicities therein concerning AI. Although ‘AI’ is increasingly becoming a marketing term, there are still substantive strategic efforts toward developing AI industries. These policy consultations do open opportunities for experts like the authors to contribute to public discourse and policy practice on AI. Regardless, in the process of negotiating and developing around these initiatives, a range of dominant publicities emerge, including inevitability and hype. We draw on our experiences contributing to AI policy-making processes in two Global North countries. Resurfacing long-standing critical questions about participation in policymaking, our manuscript reflects on the possibilities of critical scholarship faced with the uncertainty in the rhetoric of democracy and public engagement.