Protocol Futuring: Speculating Second-Order Dynamics of Protocols in Sociotechnical Infrastructural Futures
Botao Amber Hu, Samuel Chua, Helena Rong

TL;DR
This paper introduces Protocol Futuring, a method for exploring how protocols evolve over long periods, revealing infrastructural politics and second-order effects in sociotechnical futures.
Contribution
It presents a novel methodological framework focusing on protocols as primary material for speculative inquiry in long-term infrastructural futures.
Findings
Revealed how protocols change through ambiguous handovers and reinterpretations
Demonstrated the method's ability to make infrastructural politics visible
Showed how shifting norms and crises influence protocol evolution
Abstract
Drawing on infrastructure studies in HCI and CSCW, this paper introduces Protocol Futuring, a methodological framework that extends design futuring by foregrounding protocols -- rules, standards, and coordination mechanisms -- as the primary material of speculative inquiry. Rather than imagining discrete future artifacts, Protocol Futuring examines how protocol rules accumulate drift, jam, and other second-order effects over long temporal horizons. We demonstrate the method through a case study of Knowledge Futurama, a multi-team participatory workshop exploring millennial-scale knowledge preservation. Using a relay format in which teams inherited and reinterpreted partially formed designs, the workshop revealed how ambiguous handovers, adversarial reinterpretations, shifting cultural norms, and crisis dynamics transform protocols as they move across communities and epochs. The case…
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Taxonomy
TopicsInformation Systems Theories and Implementation · Innovative Human-Technology Interaction · Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
