Plugging it in: This is really interesting, but what are you going to do with it

Three early career academics walk into a conference space with nothing but a poster-size image of an old computer displaying a QR code and a cheat sheet with a few defined terms. Armed with a playful approach and willingness to figure out how to use the big display looming over them in the room, the authors interact with their peers, tenured and non-tenured faculty members, and are confronted with the question: “This is interesting, but what are you going to do with it?” What follows are debates around Artificial Intelligence, higher ed ethics, the AcademicConferenceMachine, institutional hierarchies, and of course, phytosexuality. In this paper, we sit with the question and explore what normative intentions might be hiding behind it. We reflect on what happens when early-stage researchers unsettle the AcademicConferenceMachine, the potentials of conferencing differently, the dangers of taking risks, and the seedlings of hope that we can turn the (dreaded) question on its head and ask right back at it: “This is interesting, and what are we going to become with it?”