AI as boundary infrastructure in environmental assessment

ID: 2025

Presenting Author: Lone Kørnøv

Session: 581 - Experiences in enhancing communication through the application of AI in IA

Status: pending


Summary Statement

Explores how AI and digital platforms act as boundary infrastructures that shape communication, coordination, and understanding in Environmental Assessment.


Abstract

Environmental Assessment (EA) depends on effective communication between diverse actors—consultants, authorities, developers, and the public—who operate with different goals, languages, and forms of expertise. This presentation explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and digital infrastructures are reshaping that communication.
It applies the boundary object perspective to conceptualize digital platforms as boundary infrastructures: shared socio-technical systems that enable coordination across professional and institutional boundaries without requiring full agreement on meaning. These infrastructures mediate the flow of information, interpretation, dialogue, and learning in EA, while also redefining what knowledge becomes visible, comparable, and trusted.
The presentation concludes that strengthening EA’s communicative foundations requires designing digital and AI-enabled infrastructures that remain flexible, transparent, and context-aware. By viewing communication through the lens of boundary infrastructures, we can better guide the integration of AI in ways that foster dialogue, comparability, and collective learning across the EA community.


Author Bio

Professor in environmental assessment and decision-making, head of the Danish Center for Environmental Assessment, Aalborg University.


Coauthor 1: Ivar Lyhne

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