New Media & Society
We are pleased to announce that the special issue Decoding Artificial Sociality: Technologies, Dynamics, Implications is now published in New Media & Society.
Conducting conversations with artificial intelligence technologies such as ChatGPT is becoming an everyday experience for large masses of people. This special issue tackles a dimension of AI that is becoming increasingly relevant and ubiquitous: artificial sociality, defined as technologies and practices that construct the appearance of social behaviour in machines and stimulating humans who interact with them to project social frames and meanings.
The issue includes outstandings contributions that offer empirical findings and theoretical insights by examining a broad array of AI technologies, ranging from ChatGPT to Replika.
Special issue highlights:
Decoding Artificial Sociality: Technologies, Dynamics, Implications
In the introduction to the special issue, Iliana Depounti and Simone Natale discuss the dynamics and implications of artificial sociality and show how these technologies are increasingly incorporated and normalized within digital platforms.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448251359217
“Capacities for social interactions are just being absorbed by the model”: User engagement and assetization of data in the artificial sociality enterprise
Jieun Lee analyzes ScatterLab’s use of user-generated language data to develop the Korean chatbot Luda, showing how data, even if harmful or abusive, may be repurposed for business interests.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14614448251338275
Grooming an ideal chatbot by training the algorithm: Exploring the exploitation of Replika users’ immaterial labor
Shuyi Pan, Leopoldina Fortunati and Autumn Edwards conducted a digital ethnography on a pioneer online community related to companion chatbot Replika. Their analysis revealed that Replika users invest a significant amount of intellectual and affective resources into the chatbot through algorithm training, driven by fascinating imaginaries of an ideal AI partner.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14614448251338271
The quasi-domestication of social chatbots: The case of Replika
Gina Neff and Peter Nagy discuss how users adapt to changing AI companions, showing that re-domestication strategies are essential to re-integrate these technologies into everyday life.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14614448251359218
‘I think I misspoke earlier. My bad!’: Exploring how generative artificial intelligence tools exploit society’s feeling rules
Lisa M. Given, Sarah Polkinghorne, and Alexa Ridgway analyze how genAI bots mobilize social rules and gendered feeling norms to imitate emotional responsiveness.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448251338276
The sociocultural roots of artificial conversations: The taste, class and habitus of generative AI chatbots
Ilir Rama and Massimo Airoldi explore how large language models inscribe class bias and reproduce sociocultural patterns of taste and habitus.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14614448251338273
Meta-authenticity and fake but real virtual influencers: A framework for artificial sociality analysis and ethics
Do Own (Donna) Kim examines the relationship between artificial sociality and authenticity through the case of CGI virtual influencers, proposing “meta-authenticity” as a framework to assess realness and inauthenticity.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/14614448251338272
The conversational action test: Detecting the artificial sociality of artificial intelligence
Saul Albert, William Housley, Rein Sikveland, and Elizabeth Stokoe introduce a “Conversational Action Test” to assess how artificial agents achieve conversational competence.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/14614448251338277
In mobilizing the concept of artificial sociality, the issue stresses the importance of identifying and exploring the implications, potentials, and risks of AI technologies that create the appearance of sociality in a society increasingly shaped by encounters between humans and machines.
Access the full special issue in New Media & Society here:
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/nmsa/27/10
