PlayFutures: Imagining Civic Futures with AI and Puppets

Children are the builders of the future and crucial to how the technologies around us develop. They are not voters but are participants in how the public spaces in a city are used. Through a workshop designed around kids of age 9-12, we investigate if novel technologies like artificial intelligence can be integrated in existing ways of play and performance to 1) re-imagine the future of civic spaces, 2) reflect on these novel technologies in the process and 3) build ways of civic engagement through play. We do this using a blend AI image generation and Puppet making to ultimately build future scenarios, perform debate and discussion around the futures and reflect on AI, its role and potential in their process. We present our findings of how AI helped envision these futures, aid performances, and report some initial reflections from children about the technology.