Lay representations of artificial intelligence: a scoping review informed by social representations theory

With the increasing development of artificial intelligence (AI), AI has become embedded in everyday life. Understanding individuals’ social representations and understandings of AI is crucial, as these shared beliefs shape how people engage with AI technologies and inform the design of effective policies and AI literacy initiatives. Guided by Social Representations Theory (SRT), this scoping review synthesises how non-technical individuals socially represent AI through processes of objectification, anchoring, and evaluative anchoring. Following a systematic review approach, sixty-six empirical studies published between 2010 and 2026 were analysed. The review resulted in a taxonomy of recurring representational patterns organised around core SRT concepts, capturing how AI is imagined, explained, and evaluated in everyday discourse. In addition, the review descriptively summarises conditions reported in the literature, such as experiential, demographic, and contextual factors, that may shape these representations. By consolidating fragmented findings across diverse study contexts, this review offers a theoretically grounded overview of lay understandings of AI. The findings provide a foundation for future research and offer practical insights for educators and designers seeking to develop AI literacy initiatives that engage with the socially shared ways in which AI is understood and evaluated.