Gideon Dishon

Discourse on technology in education is dominated by deterministic, techno-centric narratives that portray technology as an inevitable force, while positioning education in a reactive role. Speculative storytelling strives to challenge such tendencies and imagine alternative educational futures. However, further clarity is needed concerning the opportunities and trade-offs characteristic of speculative storytelling. Drawing on research in science fiction studies and critical EdTech, this paper develops a four-axis framework that operationalizes speculative storytelling’s potential contributions and limitations. The first two axes explore the relations between the empirical and fictional reality: extent of departure from current reality (radical-reinforcing), and valence of the imagined world (utopian-dystopian). The next two axes examine the fictional reality itself: type of case examined (extraordinary-mundane), and scope of analysis (holistic-atomistic). To clarify and concretize this framework, I analyze four canonical works of science fiction on AI, a timely issue also rooted in a rich history of fictional engagement: R.U.R. (Čapek), Reason (Asimov), The Player of Games (Banks), and Klara and the Sun (Ishiguro). This analysis illustrates how the framework could function as an analytical tool that facilitates a more nuanced understanding of speculative storytelling’s capacity for critical engagement with the stories we tell and the futures we imagine.