Using the contravision approach to elicit user reactions to future manufacturing technologies

The future’s industrial workforce will be a product of today’s society. As manufacturing evolves to incorporate digital manufacturing technologies (DMTs), addressing societal concerns surrounding these technologies will support ethical and effective implementation. Using the ContraVision technique (Mancini, et al. 2010), we developed two videos showing fictional, futuristic utopian and dystopian perspectives on DMTs. These videos were used to elicit feedback from the public on perceptions of these technologies. Results showed that regardless of the utopic or dystopic condition, participants acknowledged benefits of such technologies despite expressing concerns, specifically identifying issues around ethical implementation and data security.