Algorithmic technologies and (large) data infrastructures, often referred to as Artificial Intelligence (AI), have received increasing attention from gerontological research in the last decade. While there is much literature that dissects and explores the development, application, and evaluation of AI relevant for gerontology, this article makes a novel contribution by critically engaging with the theorizing in this growing field of research. We observe that gerontology’s engagement with AI is shaped by an interventionist logic that situates AI as a black box for gerontological research. We demonstrate how this black box logic has neglected many aspects of AI as a research topic for gerontology and discuss three classical concepts in gerontology to show how they can be used to open various black boxes of aging and AI in the areas: a) the datafication of aging, b) the political economy of AI and aging, and c) everyday engagements and embodiments of AI in later life. In the final chapter, we propose a model of the co-constitution of aging and AI that makes theoretical propositions to study the relational terrain between aging and AI and hence aims to open the black box of AI in gerontology beyond an interventionist logic.Vera Gallistl’s work on this paper has been funded by the Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF) and by the State of Lower Austria through project ICT20-055 (Grant-ID: 10.47379/ICT20055). Barbara Marshall’s work on this paper has been funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (435-2017-1343) and the Canadian Institute for Health Research (155188). We acknowledge support by Open Access Publishing Fund of Karl Landsteiner University of Health Sciences, Krems, Austria
