Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and semi-structured interviews in cyberinfrastructure settings related to science gateways, this paper argues that AI readiness is a community accomplishment produced through shared practices, trust relations, and learning processes. Integrating Diffusion of Innovations theory with the Communities of Practice, it shows that compatibility, trialability, and observability are socially produced through community interaction rather than individual judgment alone. Across the interviews, three patterns emerge: AI readiness is co-defined rather than prescribed, adoption travels on trust and small-scale trial, and readiness is rehearsed and distributed through training and participation. Although the empirical material comes from a research vessel and related cyberinfrastructure settings rather than science gateways directly, these mechanisms are likely to extend to gateway communities because gateways must also absorb new sociotechnical risk through shared governance, trust-building, and distributed learning.

Date

2026

Authors

Mahedi Hasan, Kerk F Kee, Ewa Deelman, Melissa Santillana, Kulsawasd Jitkajornwanich, Jon McNaughtan