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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Artificial Sociality, Simone Natale, Iliana Depounti Apr 2024

Artificial Sociality, Simone Natale, Iliana Depounti

Human-Machine Communication

This article proposes the notion of Artificial Sociality to describe communicative AI technologies that create the impression of social behavior. Existing tools that activate Artificial Sociality include, among others, Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, voice assistants, virtual influencers, socialbots and companion chatbots such as Replika. The article highlights three key issues that are likely to shape present and future debates about these technologies, as well as design practices and regulation efforts: the modelling of human sociality that foregrounds it, the problem of deception and the issue of control from the part of the users. Ethical, social and cultural …


Communicative Ai And Techno-Semiotic Mediatization: Understanding The Communicative Role Of The Machine, Göran Bolin Apr 2024

Communicative Ai And Techno-Semiotic Mediatization: Understanding The Communicative Role Of The Machine, Göran Bolin

Human-Machine Communication

Mediatization discourse has so far mainly been centered on media from institutional or social-constructionist approaches. The technological developments within communications industries coupled with the wider societal process of datafication might, however, beg for dusting off the smaller, although the long-time existing, technological approach to mediatization as a complement to the two other approaches, in order to understand aspects of automation and human-machine communication. This theoretical article explores how existing mediatization approaches can refocus to include lessons learned from human-machine communication. The first section accounts for the main mediatization approaches. The second section discusses debates on communication, artificiality, and meaning-making. The …


Mediatization And Human-Machine Communication: Trajectories, Discussions, Perspectives, Andreas Hepp, Göran Bolin, Andrea L. Guzman, Wiebke Loosen Apr 2024

Mediatization And Human-Machine Communication: Trajectories, Discussions, Perspectives, Andreas Hepp, Göran Bolin, Andrea L. Guzman, Wiebke Loosen

Human-Machine Communication

As research fields, mediatization and Human-Machine Communication (HMC) have distinct historical trajectories. While mediatization research is concerned with the fundamental interrelation between the transformation of media and communications and cultural and societal changes, the much younger field of HMC delves into human meaning-making in interactions with machines. However, the recent wave of “deep mediatization,” characterized by an increasing emphasis on general communicative automation and the rise of communicative AI, highlights a shared interest in technology’s role within human interaction. This introductory article examines the trajectories of both fields, demonstrating how mediatization research “zooms out” from overarching questions of societal and …