Abstract:
Artificial intelligence is going to change how we do research on marine governance. This presentation is a reflection on two research projects in which we experiment with artificial intelligence for the analysis of qualitative texts, using AI Assist of MAXQDA. One project uses AI to help in the analysis of well-known articles about ocean privatization. The other project explores AI tools for assisting in a qualitative thematic analysis on interview data from a participatory modeling study on the governance of the Sechura bay, Peru marine resource system. We use our experiences in these cases as a starting point for a wider reflection and discussion on the transformative opportunities, challenges, and ethical dilemmas which arise from using these tools in marine governance research. This includes the dramatic increase in capacity and efficiency afforded by these tools for synthesizing with large sets of qualitative interview data or policy documents, literature reviews, as well as meta-analyses of large populations of heterogeneous marine and coastal governance case studies. Outside of direct applications to analysis, these tools offer other ways to change our ways of doing research: from facilitating new ways of interacting or “chatting” with qualitative transcripts, to translating and captioning of conversations in nearly real time. At the same time, it comes with countless concerns: what kinds of and how much interpretation is being handed over to a “black box” external logic? What are the ethical implications of policy recommendations being driven, indirectly or directly, by this “black box”? In co-produced marine governance research, do these tools risk displacing the role of local people in interpreting and theorizing together with researchers? We aim to use these reflections to prompt a discourse on how to develop best practices and considerations amidst this rapidly changing transformation.