Opening the Black Box of AI: A Sociological Study of AI as a Network

Borabay Erbay and Kelly Joyce
Additional contact information
Borabay Erbay: İzmir Ekonomi Üniversitesi
Kelly Joyce: Drexel University

Journal of Economy Culture and Society, 2025, vol. 70y, issue 71, 1-20

Abstract: This study provides a sociological understanding of the production of AI, which is underexplored in the sociology of AI. To achieve this, the study focuses on the AI development process. Utilizing Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this study demonstrates how the development of AI creates a network consisting of both human and nonhuman actors. The sociological literature focuses on how AI is adopted in various social contexts, identifying the social effects of its introduction and use. We investigate AI itself, showing the values and politics that constitute AI sociotechnical systems in the United States. Based on interviews with software engineers residing in Northeastern USA who work on AI and music platforms, the study highlights how humans and nonhuman actors and social forces such as capitalism and imperialism coproduce AI systems. Engineers’ technicality-bound worldview plays a crucial role in their interpretation of AI and the drive for efficiency and profit are foundational values that justify including nonhuman actors such as generative AI platforms and datasets as participants in AI networks. This ultimately results in the production of AI sociotechnical systems that recreate values central to capitalism and imperialism.

Keywords: Sociology; Actor-Network Theory; Artificial Intelligence; Science and Technology Studies (STS); Software Engineering (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cdn.istanbul.edu.tr/file/JTA6CLJ8T5/A17D6B5A234C4C7B95F1C2261531B76D (application/pdf)
https://iupress.istanbul.edu.tr/en/journal/jecs/ar ... y-of-ai-as-a-network (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ist:iujecs:v:70y:2025:i:0:p:1-20

DOI: 10.26650/JECS2024-1467424

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Economy Culture and Society is currently edited by Veysel Bozkurt

More articles in Journal of Economy Culture and Society from Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Istanbul University Press Operational Team (Ertuğrul YAŞAR) ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).