A magical solution to a wicked problem? Problem representations and the techno-solutionist framing of post-separation apps

Judith Bishop, Laura Tolton, Tonya Stebbins

Abstract: Magical thinking in the form of technological solutionism (Morozov, To save everything, click here: Technology, solutionism, and the urge to fix problems that don't exist, Penguin Books Limited, London, 2013) and enchanted determinism (Campolo and Crawford, Engaging Sci Technol Soc 6:1–19, 2020) is implicated in the rise of AI-powered solutions to seemingly intractable human problems in domains including law, mental and physical health, and education. These solutions aim to control the complexity, messiness, and unpredictability of human behaviors, but in the process may misrepresent the wicked problems and highly contextualized behaviors they are seeking to manage. As a result, they risk directing attention and investment away from addressing their causes. In this paper, we examine a new class of AI-powered technology, the post-separation app, which is proposed as an intervention to manage and reduce personal and legal conflict between separated parents with shared custody of children. We argue that the design and marketing of post-separation apps misrepresent the complex communication patterns arising in the context of post-separation litigation as mutual ‘high conflict’ (OurFamilyWizard (2025b) High conflict co-parenting. OurFamilyWizard. https://www.ourfamilywizard.com.au/knowledge-centre/solutions/high-conflict-co-parenting) suggesting that this can be reduced or resolved through app-based moderation of co-parent communications. Evidence from the Australian context shows that in fact, up to 80% of post-separation cases involve family violence and coercive control, with the same issue forming a key part of post-separation litigation reported in research undertaken in other Anglophone contexts. Given this context, the apps’ unsubstantiated representation of the post-separation interactional problem as mutual communicative conflict has the effect of masking family violence. In so doing, they further risk re-consolidating perspectives that mutualize responsibility for abuse and practices that have only recently begun to shift in response to evidence-based policy changes relating to family violence in the Australian legal context (Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (FCFCOA) (2021a) Family Violence Information Sheet. https://www.fcfcoa.gov.au/fl/pubs/fv-info-sheet). We propose that an explicit theory of problem representations is needed to detect and critique such misrepresentations in technological solutions, and we adapt Carol Bacchi’s (Bacchi, Women, policy and politics: The construction of policy problems, SAGE Publications Limited, London, 1999;Bacchi, Analysing policy: what’s the problem represented to be?, Pearson Education, Frenchs Forest, 2009;) influential framework ‘What is the Problem Represented to be?’ (WPR) to this end. Finally, we propose to extend the existing dimensions of ethical evaluation of AI technologies to include potential impacts on the privacy and safety of at-risk users; the distorting effects of commercial incentive structures; and impacts on the highly regulated professional contexts in which some apps are intervening as extra-regulatory artificial agents. As a case study, we refer throughout to OurFamilyWizard® (OFW), a high-profile international post-separation app whose name explicitly evokes the imaginary dimension of techno-solutionism.