Enacting AI from the perspective of effectuation and causation
通过访谈24位创业者，发现效果推理和因果推理两种决策逻辑会塑造创业者对人工智能的感知、使用目的和互动方式，分别导向开发式自动化和共创式增强。
• Decision-making logics materialize in the enactment of AI affordances. • Effectuation and causation vary in the perception of AI, aim of use, and type of interaction. • From an effectual perspective, entrepreneurs aim for co-creative augmentation. • From a causal perspective, entrepreneurs aim for exploitative automation. Entrepreneurs enact artificial intelligence (AI) in fundamentally different ways, from automating discrete tasks to engaging AI as a collaborative counterpart. Yet why entrepreneurs perceive and use the same technology so differently remains underexplained. Integrating effectuation and causation theory with an affordance perspective, this study examines how entrepreneurial decision-making logics shape the perception, aim of use, and type of interaction with AI. While prior research has treated technology primarily as a contextual factor, semi-structured interviews with 24 entrepreneurs reveal that effectuation and causation act as constitutive mechanisms that antecedently shape how AI affordances are perceived and enacted. Two distinct enactment principles emerge: Entrepreneurs with causal orientations pursue exploitative automation, perceiving AI as an operational tool for outcome-oriented tasks. Those with effectual orientations pursue co-creative augmentation, perceiving AI as a counterpart for process-oriented collaboration. This study extends effectuation theory by demonstrating how decision-making logics as constitutive mechanisms materialize in distinct technology enactments.