AI in and for Society - Summary PDF

AI IN AND FOR SOCIETY ✅ Society can be explained: social science epistemology ✅ ➔​ What is STS...

AI IN AND FOR SOCIETY ✅ Society can be explained: social science epistemology ✅ ➔​ What is STS ✅ ➔​ What is epistemology and ontology ✅ ➔​ Critical Rationalism: understanding physical world: Popper ✅ ➔​ Understanding (and explaining) the social world: Bordieu ➔​ Situated Knowledge, Contingency: Haraway ✅ Society is many individuals: ontologies of “the social” and soci(et)al theories ✅ ➔​ Who is society? ✅ ➔​ Scripts: Goffman ✅ ➔​ Norms and other Social Facts: Durkheim ✅ ➔​ Ontologies of the social from Individual to Structure ✅ ➔​ Structuralism ✅ ◆​ Historical materialism, Means and relations of production: Marx ◆​ Universal mental structures: Lévi-Strauss ✅ Individuals behave: moving targets - social action & individual experience ✅ ➔​ Social Action/ Kultur Mensch: Weber ✅ ➔​ Social fields, social capital and Habitus: Bourdieu ➔​ Struggle for cultural hegemony: Identity Vs Identity politics, Hall ✅ People know what they are doing: discourses and subjects ✅ ➔​ Poststructuralism: discourse and power knowledge ✅ ➔​ Discourse Analysis: Foucault ➔​ Dynamic nominalism: Ian Hacking ✅ People are different from rocks: material and infrastructural turn ✅ ➔​ Perspectivalism VS Perspectivism: Viveiros de Castro ✅ ➔​ Artefacts have politics: Latour ➔​ Actor-Network-theory: Latour, Akrich, Law, Callon ✅ Politics is about pushing your interests trough: sub- and ontological politics ➔​ Politics and subpolitics: de Vries (ler devries) ✅ ➔​ 5 notions of politics in STS: ✅ ◆​ Governmentality: Foucault ✅ ◆​ Deliberative Assemblies: Habermas ✅ ◆​ Sovereignty: Schmitt ✅ ◆​ Public and its problems: Dewey ✅ ◆​ New associations and cosmograms: Latour ➔​ Ontological Politics, articulating science “par le milieu”: Mol, Tsing, Barad ​ ✅ It’s the economy, stupid: markets as practices ✅ ➔​ From Economy to economization: Caliskan & Callon ✅ ➔​ Formalist VS substantivist debate: Polanyi ➔​ From markets to marketisation Case studies: 1.Ethical Implications of genAI, 2.AI Hype, 3.Robotics in the medical field 1) Society can be explained: social science epistemology Myth 1: “society can be explained” knowledge and social phenomena QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION What is STS? Interdisciplinary field of social sciences and humanities It investigates empirically and conceptually how the production of knowledge and technologies interacts with how we live together. (Thislecture is about the perspective of STS on understanding society) What is Epistemology? The study of knowledge -​ need to ask ourselves however what even is knowledge, where do we draw the line What is ontology? The study of what is, the study of being and existence What does explaining something mean? ∴ How is understanding related to explaining? How do we understand natural Vs social phenomena ? How do we explain the Through Critical Rationalism natural world? ⬇ It´s Karl Popper’s principle of falsification → the idea that we need to analyze a hypothesis with a method and reason to find conditional truth. If the hypothesis cannot be falsified, then it must be considered true. It's how most of us explain and understand science and nature. We create theories and (universal) laws that describe our world. Does not say WHY things are the way they are, they just explain, aka show the cause of it. Explaining is different from understanding. How do we explain the Much more difficult than explaining the natural world because: social world ? No clear pattern, single reasons, mechanical causality. Cannot say every time the bread price rises there is a french revolution → history is idiosyncratic there are some approaches including one from Pierre Bordieu ∴, why is understanding Because you can understand social science but cannot explain it like you would a natural science related, but not equal to social science natural science explaining ? understanding explaining → there is no single determinant of a social situation: influences from the milieu or subjective experiences make it difficult to explain it. What does Pierre Bordieu For Bordieu, Intersubjective Understanding is needed to understand say about understanding social phenomena: social phenomena? - to understand a social situation you need to understand the people and their backgrounds, not project yourself into them! not you in their shoes. Understanding comes from distance! minimize it but at the same time look from outside. also: acknowledge that no standpoint is neutral! You cannot not take one, none is neutral. Acknowledge your biases, and present social dynamics  “understanding means interpreting people’s subjective experiences in relation to the objective social conditions that shape that experiences” Challenge: difficult to do, requires listening and observational skills. Also, there is no such thing as objective social conditions, Increasingly difficult. understanding and explaining are indeed the same thing! There isn't one without the other (like for science you can explain without understanding, idea from Wilhem Dilthey) What’s the difference between explaining and Pierre Bourdieu posits that understanding and explaining are not distinct but understanding? rather intertwined processes. → Understanding involves situating oneself in the interviewee's social position to grasp their perspective and the social conditions that shape their experiences. ​It is about empathetically and intellectually comprehending the individual's life story and social context. ​(empatia, mentally put yourself in their place, social and psychological conditions) → Explaining, on the other hand, involves uncovering and articulating the social mechanisms and structures that produce the individual's experiences and viewpoints. ​It is a more analytical process that seeks to reveal the broader social forces at play. ​(structural) Bourdieu argues against Wilhelm Dilthey's old distinction between understanding (Verstehen) and explaining (Erklären), suggesting that true comprehension of social phenomena requires both. ​Understanding provides the empathetic insight into the individual's perspective, while explaining situates that perspective within the broader social context and structures. ​ Together, they offer a complete picture of the social reality being studied. ​ What does Donna Haraway proposes the idea of Situated Knowledge Haraway say about the idea that all knowledge is contingent knowledge production and understanding → The things we know could exist differently, and be explained differently if society? things had developed differently → Valid from social constructs to natural phenomena, facts and knowledge are contingent → Things that are “facts” could be explained differently. It's still a fact, it can just be explained differently. → Facts = robust fit between 1) World 2) Theory 3) Apparatus !! facts are not the same as opinions and are not just constructed. they are true.. can just have a different explanation if another robust fit is found. → We have to know the subjects: -​ Consider everything: even who is the person behind the claim? Who funds research and “fact finding?” -​ all knowledge is produced from a standpoint: in history, society, personal life, geographic, political, economical…. -​ everyone has only partial vision → and this leads to situated knowledge!!! It’s situated in your scenario and vision. Summary: all knowledge is contingent. It is shaped by the subject’s position in society (economic, political, geographical) and a wide range of historical factors.  What does Donna Haraway talks about “Semiotic Technologies” Haraway say about our → the technologies we use shape the conversation and knowledge about a technologies? subject (climate change as a matter of degrees and not economics) Which words? Which story? Technologies are used to make meaning. Semiotic is the language we use. → Material-semiotic technologies for making knowledge: we have to analyze the entanglements of these 2 dimensions in STS: the material and semiotic! How are they intertwined? What does that mean for knowledge production? Who's building tech for what purposes and with what goals? goal of STS: make transparent where and why knowledge comes from… How come people aren't just making shit up? -​ Contingency is different from fake news… we have structures that don’t allow for that (Most people researching a üheneomena really want to understand it, organized scepticism towards truth claims, scientists have to be willing to discuss and hera about “other” What do Bordieu and For both Bourdieu and Harraway understanding society is about Harraway have in understanding subjective experiences in relation to objective common? circumstances that shape that experience! Everything is situated, contingent, undertaking and explaining is needed → it means doing your best to empirically and conceptually produce a faithful account of subjective experiences in relation to their objective conditions of possibility. Exploring alternative accounts and their consequences is needed 2) Society is many individuals: ontologies of “the social” and soci(et)al theories Myth 2: “society is the people”, what is “the social” and how/ what lets people act ? QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION What is society made depending on the approach to this question you come to different answers on from? how to structure and make sense of it (who is deserving of social welfare?) People, the State, Laws, Institutions, Culture and Economy (market shapes how people interact) → we can look at it from various standpoints: this is however ALWAYS POLITICAL! (issue of partial vision) always epistemically, politically and ethically accountable for producing knowledge about society…. {Anthropology, behavioral economics, political science etc } We can define society as: (people and institutions) people living together, where over time a set of formal and informal rules were established that manifest a specific social and moral order. A majority of societies inhabit nation states, organized by populations, are within a territory and have a sovereign enacting the rule of law. What is “the social”? “The social” is a dynamic network of actors that underpins and shapes and how is that different all aspects of society (the sphere that relates to people) from society? → society is a state of “the social” (the social is bigger that society itself) → economics or politics can be seen as an interaction of “the social” with tech → actually anything is social: everything is a “consequence” of the social. How do we study “the study of what is/ existence social” ? we have to start from the ontology of the social (situation): the interaction between who, where, what/ how, structures, actors, practices…. and then there's the need to have the correct methods to produce that empirical data Question: where within the social does agency/ the ability to act reside? How does it evolve, develop or change? Theories can be more Individual or more structural: Decides where the ability to act? To what degree can people act and choose independently from the structures. What does Erving Goffman says that social situations are scripted: Goffman say about he believes social situations are scripted/ can be seen as stage fronts: understanding social -​ in every social situation people (actors) are performing a role they situations ? (“the social”) think fits bets to the situation → you understand what's going on and act accordingly -​ The scripts directs and suggest how to interpret the situation -​ There are multiple scripts -​ It is NOT a rational choice to follow them, it just happens -​ Not just “in my head”, they are a social phenomena! What else can be said The tiniest interaction gives away everything about a society. Even when about social situations almost nothing happens. To understand the smallest of interactions, you need and “the social”? to understand the whole of society. ---> FRACTAL (same level of complexity in all levels of analysis) Not interacting is also social interaction. (Riding the elevator) People cannot individually change the scripts…. but they contribute to their execution, reproduction and development What does Émile Durkheim: and the idea of Norms and other Social Facts Durkehiem say about Understanding society is about understanding social facts and how they understanding social evolved - it has actually nothing to do with individuals and their subjective situations? experiences! (That’s why it’s in the “structure” part) We are shaped by the structures in which we live- the laws, morality, rituals and economic system. they exist externally, regardless of individual desires or actions. Strong coercive power that goes down generations, if you try to deviate there are consequences (guilt and social exclusion)  Social facts = Norms that constrain behavior and we consider them as “a given”, people conform to them. -​ They can only be explained by other SF /rather then things like genetics and neurophysiology that aren't SF -​ evolve independently of their enactments. -​ should be treated as physical objects! Should be suited just like we study natural phenomena. 100% objectively. -​ How they affect people and not about individual people - identify patterns and how these facts shape that (suicide) collective forces -​ compare across epochs -​ Are not individual things, cannot make them up or change them -​ Its a social phenomenon, on its own plane “above” individuals -​ Individual behavior can only be understood if the larger social context is analyzed as well What does Marx say Marx & Engels and the Historical Materialism = Means and relations of about understanding production: social situations? Society evolves in matter of class struggles -> it not about the individual The struggle between the classes created by the advancements of economy and means of production is what moves society (will eventually end up in communism) “their social being determines their consciousness” → understanding society is about understanding class struggle we have to analyze the asymmetrical distributions of means of production and relations of production to understand this - focuses on one single society (does not compare them, eher longitudinal) What does Lévi-Strauss Lévi-Staruss preached the idea of Universal Mental Structures/ say about social Structuralism situations ? → understanding society is about understanding: universal mental structures behind the visible cultural patterns of everyday life through comparative analysis of cultural expressions (ex myths, language systems, phonemes) there should be a universal ground that determines what people in general do and how we live. Cultures would be an interpretation and expression of this. many cultures have similar, binary oppositions that can only be defined when based on their opposite: rich/poor, winner/loser This idea could explain social phenomenons and language! - wants to see the difference in structures between societies: comparative whats happens next? After the 60’s rise in individualistic notions → structuralism dies 3) Individuals behave: moving targets - social action & individual experience Myth 3: “society is how individuals behave” QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION What does Max Weber Max Weber: believes in individual meaning-making and social action says about how individuals behave? People are cultural beings (Kultur Menschen): we create meaning to things! - we do not act out of necessity/instincts, but rather out of free will! Study/Research: it's about understanding and subjective individual experiences that need to be interpreted. (Not natural science) - concerned about the DISENCHANTMENT of society: creation of a meaningless society that because of modern rationality, capitalist industrialization, bureaucracy, industrialization > loss of deeper meaning, do things automatically, without producing meaning → behaviours rather than SOCIAL ACTION - social action is with intention and meaning, aware of social impact and directed at others. Action is about attaching meaning to a behavior. Social Action is about taking account/ and orienting itself the behavior of others. - making sense of the world is an ACTIVE process - people ACT in social science, not behave (Behavior: walking, laughing, reflexive things, automatic) (Social behavior: behavior that is shaped by social forces) (Action: aimed at making sense of situation, voting, helping neighbor, art) (S. Action: directed at others and aware of social impact) - traditional action, effective action, value oriented action, goal oriented action do because always have, shaped by emotion, desire for value, instrumental behavior can always be explained, social action not that much behaving individuals (homo oeconomicus) decides rationally acting individuals (Kultur menschen) try to make sense of the world in a world that becomes disenchanted → people make sense of the world by attaching subjective meaning to the world and their actions within it → economic factors, like the development of technology, are not sufficient to explain social change. → bike accidents are behaviors, but the apologies after are social action. we respond to the meaningful actions of others. → sociological explanation requires that we reconstruct, through empathy, the motivations that gave meaning to action. Can we compare Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu? What do they Concept Max Weber Pierre Bourdieu say about understanding social action: Understan Focus on individual Focus on structure and how -ding agency and subjective power dynamics shape Society meanings. behavior.  Metho Verstehen (empathic Emphasis on implicit -dology understanding)—getting understanding—unconscio inside individuals' minds. us behavior shaped by social Not just observing, but structures like class, culture, really interpreting the education, power. All this meaning behind it. Explicit influences people's behavior. Understanding = aim for Sociological reflexivity = clarity and precision of researchers should be aware meanings behind actions of own biases, influences your perspective Key Tool Ideal Types—theoretical Social Fields and Capital— constructs to understand places where people and compare social compete for capital (social, phenomena. Analytical tool. economic, symbolic). Actions are shaped by position in the field (in the field of education, those who have more social capital aka elite schools are better positioned) Key Agency—individuals as Habitus—the internalized Concept active agents with free will. structures (habits, skills, People act based on their dispositions earn in the field) own motives, values. Power that guide individuals' to act and make choices actions unconsciously. It reflects their class background, education, previous experiences (my fair lady ou princess diaries) Approach Individualism—understandi Structuralism—understandi ng society through ng society through the larger individual actions and structures and forces choices. shaping individual behavior. Bourdieu part 2 Pierre Bourdieu: - tries to find a balance between structuralism and individualism! (there are How does Bourdieu forces that constrain, but people also act meaningfully, people maintain those understand individuals ? structures) Explain stability and transformation at the ame time. - Habitus: the ways in which we learned how to act according to our social field. What “gives away” what social background, class and experiences we have. Is shaped by our upbringing. Embodied disposition to act/think in accordance with our social fields. Deeply ingrained. Structure that structures you and structures what you can do. (structured and structuring structure) our “feel” on how to proceed. Not that strongly externally determined. - Social capital: social, cultural, economic, symbolic. Each field has different types of capital. Their possession positions us in the field. Ex: degree, or for Manet recognition. Distribution is unequal. distinction → what makes up the criterion is the context, does not just exist on its own. Cannot isolate things from the historical and political situation of its production (contra Kantian idea that its universal). What makes a work of art great are not it’s inherit characteristics. Consumption is a way to express one’s difference from others trough refinements and nuances of what they accept as good taste - Social field: specific, autonomous spaces where individuals interact,  shaped by doxa (taken for granted beliefs). Are sites of struggle. Habitus shapes how well we deal with the struggles. each one has different types of capital and ∴ habitus. fields are maintained and transformed by people. (ex: manet changing the field of french high culture by creating smth different) Understanding society is: distinctions between people and how habituated people struggle for position within their social fields What does Stuart Hall Hall: Struggle for (cultural) hegemony - CULTURAL STUDIES say about how individuals behave ? He thinks about how culture organize our everyday life intersections of race and imperialism in contemporary culture Idea that IDENTITY can be understood as a struggle over how you are addressed and what matters in a society. de acordo com what matters, quem vc eh? → What’s central and important in a society and what's periferic? Marked Vs. unmarked, Normal vs not? What roles exits, who is important ? → Obama: it matter who says what. “Woke” → Struggle for hegemony makes things change all the time Cultural studies believe that: at the base of society we have relations of production, where society is actually made and things get decided.. This is engulfed and geregelt by the suprastructure that is the struggle for cultural hegemony! (for marx the SS just echoes the base) CULTURAL HEGEMONY: - cultural things like words, concepts, images, memes that become HEGEMONIC and ∴ create/ mexem na SOCIAL ORDER ex: stereotypes -​ determines which way of life are “correct” and “fit” within a society and what others are marked as deviant and problematic → understanding society is about undertaking the struggle for cultural hegemony! How would we analyze from Individualism/ agency to Structuralism. the Boxer situation from all the sociologists' 1) Weber: social actions, done with 100% rational action, intention. Meaning making different points of view? 2) Goffman: the scripts/role everyone has to follow, impression management 3) Hall: a product of the struggle for cultural hegemony What are keywords from each of the 7 4) Bourdieu: social situation determined by the habitus of a person, in the struggle sociologists? for more social capital 5) Durkheim: determine by social facts that coerce our behavior 5) Marx: determined by the struggles between classes, class membership 5)Lévi-Strauss: determined by the underlying, universal mental structures Better to interpret specific situations VS interpret social order that arises from that situation 4) People know what they are doing: discourses and subjects Myth 4: “ people know what they are doing ” QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION What is the new movement that came around about how to analyze society and its Poststructuralism? form. late 20th century. Challenges the notion that meaning can be universally fixed - overemphasis on stable, objective structures → now, post structuralists focus on the idea that meaning is fluid, context dependent and often unstable. Subject to power dynamics. Things don't have inherent meanings, they depend on contexts and how they relate to other words → meaning is always deferred, term Différance → our sense of self and identity is not fixed = its fluid and constructed through discourse → emphasized how power, language and context shape our understanding of the world Structuralism compares forms of cultural expression to find timeless underlying structures that determine a particular culture or language. Poststructuralism investigates how within a given society the structures of what counts as true and right evolve over time (ex mulher gritando na rua) it's not about producing facts, it's about producing knowledge! What does Michel Foucault: Governmentality and Social Discourse Foucault say about to understand a society we have to understand the discourses within it understanding society? Ex: boxer situation is understood when you understand Gender and Class D. - What a man should be: assertive so sit down + What you have/ you class, shapes who you are, working class: not sit > that’s why he`s confused → People conform to this. Live in society as if that is a real thing. Only notice and change it once it is challenged. he also changed how people think about power What is knowledge? cognitive/ mentalistic view/mode: People see knowledge as something you have or hold. The body carries the mind around and knowledge has to get in. -​ neuroscience, cognitive psychology, try to measure and quantify it in the discursive mode: knowledge is what is considered true, right and valid by the discourses -​ legitimate knowledge is how we exercise political power “people know why they do stuff, but they don’t know what they do does” -​ What you do is more than just that. It is a constant iteration involved in social practice. Stuff happens with knowledge even if its not intentional Not just “something we have in our heads/facts” its about what that does What is the concept of Discourses are created by everything that is being said and done in a society discourse? about a certain topic. (in a certain epoch). → this shapes conditions for the production of knowledge and meaning -​ determine what's right or wrong at that time in society  -​ Shape the phenomena of which they speak. discourse shape action ex: discourse around deviants lead to chopping their heads off -​ Things come into being through discourse -​ Discourses are linked with political power and knowledge. -​ people usually are not aware of them unless trained -​ if you “escape” the discourse you’ll be ridiculed (outside politics) They INTERPELLATE people, make them exist in certain ways and give them certain identities. AKA They shape people, turn them into subjects - be the “type” of person- dictate how lives can be lived within a society, discourses make subjects How do we analyze Discourse Analysis: society through discourse → We are not interested in the individual/ individual experience, rather in all analysis then? the things that create the discourse -​ anti-humanist (bem diferente de weber, que acha que as pessoas -​ we do analyze this thing that we call “structures” but understand that they are not fixed! and that they only are “right” now! they are not timeless nor deterministic -​ We identify shifts in discourse! Discourse evolve over time just happen without anyone saying it, suddenly it (not) acceptable to say certain things What has that got to do before/ common understanding of: epitome of sovereign power, “take life or with power? let live” thing (thumb). One individual in the center, represses others Foucault introduces the idea of Governmentality: -​ power should not be primarily repressive , “make life or let die” idea -​ shapes you, conducts your actions. Is just “out there”, no one explicitly tell you to follow it -​ If not followed: “let die” → migrants, no societal interest -​ It's the primary form of power -​ make people live in a certain way, either conform or fight it (but makes life very hard) “power is a set of technologies of government that shape bodies, subjects and populations THROUGH KNOWLEDGE” -​ shapes how lives can be lived or if they should be ignored Technologies of the self = through the discourse you manage and control yourself. Observe yourself in comparison to the discourse (what is being someone who drinks enough water?) - you internalize it. → HOW THINGS ARE STRUCTURED AND DONE How do we analyze and 1)​ look for power in NETWORKS (not in a centre) find power and 2)​ look for effective PRACTICES (not conscious intent) knowledge? 3)​ Power is RELATIONAL = the individual is where it happens and suffers its effects 4)​ Power operates from BOTTOM UP mechanisms (not global rule) 5)​ the INSTRUMENTS through which P & K is produced and stored matter, not the ideology (the actually shape more than just the idea What are the instruments that P & K use? -​ Institutions ex: schools, prisons, asylums, hospitals -​ Surveillance techniques ex: panopticon -​ Techniques of categorization ex: medical diagnosis, criminal classification -​ Discourses Ex: the way info is presented and what's normal is defined examples for foucauldian Medicalization and knowledge: logic: Hospitals and asylums aren't just where knowledge is applied, its where knowledge is created through systems of classification, observation or treatment -​ if categorized as mentally ill Vs sane, we will produced knowledge about that -​ the systems (diagnostic categories, treatments, institutional rules) produce knowledge about health and illness -​ Discipline and Punish: shift from older forms of punishment (like public executions) to modern forms of discipline (like imprisonment and surveillance). What mattered more than just the ideology that justified these forms of punishment was the instruments of discipline: the actual systems of surveillance, record-keeping, and classification that produced knowledge about crime and criminality, and also shaped the behavior of individuals through these systems. Knowledge is not neutral! It's embedded and created through these power structures What does Ian Hacking Ian Hacking and Dynamic Nominalism - looping effect and making up say about understanding people society? About how classifications of people/phenomena affect the people classified, and how the effects in turn change the classification. (based on Foucault’s discourse idea) These classifications are socially constructed rather than just exits waiting to be discovered dynamic relationship between namings and the people they classify. Actively shaping both directions. Changes how they act and understand themselves. and also change the categories based on their behaviours and self perceptions ( disorder → disability) → Terms: Making up people = ways in which a new scientific classification may bring to existence a new way to be a person Looping effect = the way in which a classification may interact with the people classified. Framework/ key players of making up people: a) Classifications - Multiple Personality Disorder b) People - Unhappy people c) Institutions - Clinics, Society for the Study of MPD, Talk shows.. popular d) Knowledge - Basic assumptions we regard as true (at the time) expert or e) Experts - professionals who generate legitimate knowledge → roles and weights are different in every case → different frameworks. One doctor doesn't believe in this. If the patient is treated by a believer she would become a very different type of person What's an example for Multiple personality disorder: dynamic nominalism? - 1970 first psychiatrists diagnose this - with time more and more people who felt unwell had this  - new symptoms started to appear - “normal” was to have 17 instead of 2 or 3 personalities - This fed back into the diagnosis and became part of the therapy to elicit more personalities → became a way to be a person! with a set of memories and behaviors → “in 55 there were no people with MPD, in 85 there were many” more correct is to say: that unlike in 55, in 85 people experience themselves in this way, a specific way to live that did not exist before Now: Dissociative identity disorder, other symptoms are expected and presented (Transient mental illness, only exists in a certain time and place) Autism and ADHD: antes, perto de esquizofrenia, dps disorder e mais recente uma disability before it was rare, now changes in reporting and criteria. Almost ten times as many people as before. “ In the 50’s this was not a way to be a person, people did not experience themselves in this way, they did not interact with friends, families in this way. In 2000 that became a way to be a person , to experience oneself, to live in society” Looping effect: the few diagnosed, learned how to live with it and created the class of “high functioning”. Once more people saw that and identify themselves with it, it became a way of being a person! → the new concept arises from the interaction of the 5 elements → people change as they recognize themselves as such! How do we arrive in new Through the 7 Engines of discovery: ways to be a person? 1) Count 2) Quantify how does making up 3) Create Norms people take place ? 4) Correlate 5) Medicalise 6) Biologise 7) Geneticise - until here it's scientifically driven. But 3 more relevant ones: 8) Normalize 9) Bureaucratie 10) Reclaim our identity → they drive knowledge creation, are fueled by talent and money and popular support 5) People are different from rocks: material and infrastructural turn Myth 5: “people are different than rocks” QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION Why is thinking about We have this very fixed Idea about what is human/ and what isn’t what we consider to be → BUT: not all people separate nature from culture or materiality and sociality huma important? in the same way why: because matter is political!!! depending on how we see this, who has life an is “human”, we act differently, give them more or less importance → see “the social” differently What is the definition of “ An interdisciplinary field of social science and humanities that STS ? investigates empirically and conceptually how the production of knowledge and technologies interacts with how we live together.” → we (social sciences) consider all knowledge claims to be contingent, that is the theory, method and world do fit, but there can exist other ways/explanations. In that sense, there is no “one truth”. Any kind of scientific knowledge could be otherwise. → Historical/Scientific contingency = truth claims are contingent upon historical development! What's considered true during a period of time can in a couple of years, due to development of science and tech and knowledge, seem outdated. (Popper’s critical rationalist view: as the years go by more theories get falsified and we get closer to the “real” laws of the universe. Science never gets to the “truth” but should keep trying) → Social Contingency = truth claims are contingent upon social differences. Society shapes scientific research: but the methods, instruments and theories we prioritise and build our truth claims are different between societies. That is why, different societies produce different science → and so, the conclusions we get to are only one way of framing and solving a problem. Truth claims can exist in other ways depending on the society. (even the questions we ask ourselves are different) in that case…. How do we know people are different from rocks? -​ consider the thing about discourse not an absolute transcendent truth, the connection of power/Knowledge in discourses is what makes people live life in a certain way (Foucault); (Hacking) how the institutions and classifications shape ways to be a person; or (Haraway) knowledge is situated, contingent, the position you are in reflect the tech we use to produce knowledge. Perspectivalism VS Viveiros de Castro: 2 viewpoints on how people see the world: Perspectivism: Perspectivalism: Singular nature, multiple cultures -​ story of evolution, where all life forms came from but humans distinguished themselves and “stepped up” when developed culture and became a Moral Subject and not just a Biological Body. -​ Animals stay as biological bodies. -​ There is however multiculturalism and that is where we differentiate ourselves. Sits above this “one nature” that unifies us all Perspectivism: Singular culture, multiple bodies -​ Everything that is capable of Deixis is “Human” (situating yourself based on others, time and space, appreciate your position vis a vis 🙍 others) -​ Different physical forms for all that is “human”, from capybaras to -​ The body is a physical instrument to take positions, to sense and approach others (not just a biological function!!!) it allows for ways of being in the world  Take Aways: - there are other ways to think about and distinguish nature and culture - it is extremely difficult to really understand someone else's way of being in the world/ being a person (Bourdieu; Epistemology/Ontology) - Western modern science is NOT universal! ( go from local universalism to global contextualism) this idea just gets spread out by some people. - Ontology (the boundary) is not universal, given or natural - Shows the contingency of knowledge in very fundamental things. What are the reasons to 1) Technology works - w believe because we’ve flown to the moon believe that Western 2) Epistemicides: extinguishing from other types of knowledge in the 1500s Science is the correct 3) historical argument about industrialization one? 4) Orientalism: everyone is the “other”, and we become “we” Artefacts have politics: Vinner Latour defended the idea that artifacts have politics: - Infrastructures and technologies are never politically nor ethically neutral - They have ideas about societal order and morals inscribed into them! → purposeful choices that say something about society - All technical decisions have ethical and political assumptions and implications, it enforces a structure (energy production, central or not?) and also mirrors it. (Racist bridges) Actor-Network-theory: Latour, Akrich, Law, Callon and the Actor-Network-theory & Relational thinking : very in line with Donna Haraway, about situated knowledge and relational thinking. About the role the Material world play in the social → Material things are also actors! they matter and afford a certain way of acting and living together! (not a stage where “the society” happens on top) -​ How we live together/ our thoughts are inscribed in tech -​ One person does not do it on their own… it’s a whole discourse, a combination of things, how we value certain things, consider them true, economics, politics etc (bridges are not racist on their own but they afford a behavior that people can follow - not necessarily will) -​ so much so that social actions re unthinkable without tech nowadays For them, there is no “the social” that is separated from the tech in infrastructure. → “The Social” is assembled by multiple actors (be hey human or not, no need for this distinction) -​ the distinctions between material, social and nature, “the lines” we draw are highly contingent on where we live and become socialized… → Its a network of multiple actors, humans, tech, infrastructure, nature…. All of them interact and have agency in some way and build “The social” Why ? How does this come to be? 1)​ RELATIONAL ONTOLOGIES what makes us are the relationships to all actors. Its not about the entities, relational ontology explores their dynamic connections and relations to others (Only take Chat GPt seriously bc of its relation to other things, not because in its “core” it has smth) - stabilizes social order 2)​ SHIFT FROM ACTORS TO FOCUS ON AGENCY ≠ weber, action The capacity to act is distributed across the network, not only in humans. Bridges have agency (don´t make them human though)  3)​ ONTOLOGIES (ways of existing) ARE FLAT there is no hierarchy although there are different ways to exist humans, rocks, capybaras, chat gpt, bridges… all contribute to phenomena, People are not the centre and on top. take aways: - Not all people share the Western categorical distinction between nature and culture - science is neither Universal nor the only legitimate way of knowing and being in the world - “The social” is only separated from nature and technology in Western modern scientific thinking ( Weber, Durkheim…) For them, the social is exclusively about the people. (For fault kind of in the middle bc of discourse) - Relational thinking doesn't make that strong of a distinction! → We are responsible for the socio-technical worlds that we assemble! need to think about what kind of world are we contributing to. 6) Politics is about pushing your interests trough: sub- and ontological politics QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION Who is most powerful in The German order of precedence VS. who is actually driving AI → does not creating society? match… For complex topics: who should make the decisions? politicians, the people, the experts, the ones most affected by it? How can we interpret the → for Weber politics is the struggle for influence either of leadership or the term politics? ones influencing that leadership. Politics is the competition for influence. → Politics with capital P = matters of the state, its actors, institutions and arenas; (analysing) the work of those who were granted political power -​ core of political science: the representatives we chose to make decisions for us What does the term Subpolitics = the notion that there is a significant political action happening Subpolitics mean? beyond the state / classical Politics with capital P → happens in different spheres, where it gets decided who can take part and who we exclude → ex: AI, who actually decides stuff and boosts development is not necessarily the parliament…. Why? Because there is a dilemma: People with expert knowledge = have not been given legitimate power/ People that have the power = don't necessarily have the knowledge Beck: “politics have been displaced, there is a subpolitization of society” What's democracy’s core Protect minorities principle ? -​ it's not to rule by the majority (what end up happening) -​ 49 Vs 51 aina nao pode matar os 49… Rule of Law What are the 5 notions/ Political-1 = New associations and Cosmograms, STS, Latur meanings of politics/ Political-2 = Public and its problems, Dewey, pragmatism “political”? Political-3 = Sovereignty, Schmitt Political-4 = Deliberative assemblies, Habermas according to Latour Political-5 = Governmentality, Foucault, Feminism 1. New associations and STS, Latour - New associations and cosmograms Cosmograms When a new technology arrives it will change the cosmos - how we live and interact with each other, the common world,modify the collective → new associations and cosmongram, new understanding of social and moral order Consider all consequences of this new tech, all implications for the most diverse areas, nothing is “just” a technical decision → it has consequences for the people living together → THAT IS WHY SCIENCE IS POLITICAL → Politics: Emerging publics and their struggle to convert an uncertain issue into a manageable problem AI: chat GPT surgiu as a new entity, we need to understand what lead to this development and how this new entity fits into the collective 2. Public and its problems John Dewey, pragmatism - Public and its problems Very society centered concept of Publics = emerge when there is a new issue, high degree of scientific uncertainty, no existing political institution that takes care of it yet, where the future is undecided. When people get together and discuss it. -​ The goal is not to find an answer but to decide on the framing of that issue. help shape it, under which light will we see it trough? -​ involves stakeholders, concerned groups, experts, anyone who has smth to do with it → Politics: Emerging publics and their struggle to convert an uncertain issue into a manageable problem AI: analyse public debates that unfold after the release of chat GPTs trying to understand what this will do to society. new tech comes in contact with ≠ people 3. Sovereignty Carl Schmitt - Sovereignty Classical vision, whoever wins the power has a say on what gets done Strong antagonist fashion: declase them vs us, divided into good and bad, opposites they have to win over while they position themselves as “the will of the people” (may or may not believe) → Politics: political actors trying to convince people and win their support (usually useful for their own good) AI: try to take topics and make it “our thing” like the Chip Act trying to break dominance from Taiwan chip production. Win topic for yourself. 4. Deliberative Habermas - Deliberative Assemblies Assemblies Discursive ethics: goal is to create a space/ societal conditions of deliberation that allow for the “unforced force of the better argument” to prevail -​ Everyone/ Society deliberates until the ebay argument wins -​ No defined criteria/ no material terms for what’s the best argument → Politics are spaces of deliberation: political representatives + forums for civil society AI: spaces of deliberation (parliaments and citizen’s forums) indicate and discuss latest developments and possible futures this is however hopelessly naive and this does not happen… Who is at the table, second intentions, structural biases….. 5. Governmentality Foucault - Governmentality cannot separate knowledge from power Ex: jail is political as it contributes to knowledge creating that creates power → Discourses organize power/Knowledge. this shapes the conditions for the  creation of knowledge we consider to be true (that counts) → power is not repressive - it is generative: shapes subjects, live and let die, decide between conforming and or resisting, outside politics difficult → Politics is in all institutions that produce knowledge even if seem apolitical → analyze the discourse to figure out the power dynamics in a field AI: analyze the discourses to analyze the power/knowledge situation ex: from absolute tech nerds to brogrammer and open source and transparency What are Ontological Producing knowledge is performative, i.e. producing knowledge shapes the Politics? SKIPPED world in specific ways: worlding (epistem-ontology). In ways for which you carry responsibility. (ex: Chat GPt as open source makes a knowledge-based world) Ontological politics: the struggle over which world comes to be and which other possible worlds are made latent or disappear → Politics: production of knowledge and tech as a form of making the world How should we then - How can these kinds of politics be addressed in society? articulate science “par le - How can emerging technologies and scientific Knowledge be treated as milieu?” political? - Science communication: deficit model Engagement, participation, public interest technology: mini-kings models of politics → Public science: Articulate ‘par le milieu’: Only if we people get a chance to see what science really does, how it works, how difficult it is, instead of being presented with ready-made solutions can people actually understand it and participate politically in it. build publics to deliberate the multiple possible framings and see what kinds of worlds these will result in. 7) It’s the economy, stupid: markets as practices QUESTION/ CONCEPT ANSWER/ DEFINITION Markets: try to bring order trough value and price (while politics does it by votes and democracy) Economics: a mathematical language to describe struggle between classes and people From economy to For Caliskan & Callon there is a difference between the economy, economization economics and that happened through the process of economization Economy: a thing that just “exists” and is known by economics → STS asks: how come we talk about “the economy” as if was clear what it was… almost a natural law, natural science. Its not necessarily natural. Economisation: the process by which economic reasoning is applied to various aspects of society. Which is not natural nor neutral. It happens through techniques, devices and forms of knowledge that are deployed to regulate social life. It therefore constructs “the economy”. (ex: algorithms and statistical model regulate how we talk, use, know about it)  see “the economy” as not necessarily natural there needed to be economics so that “the economy” could exist -​ exchange systems have been studied outside of the concept of economy long before economics (the subject)! -​ SO: we study “the economy” and its dynamics as SOCIAL TECHNICAL ARRANGEMENTS which means: we can explain these arrangements through economics but we don't have to… things get economized: what is truly an economic issue? Titanium at crematorium example… hard to draw the line. Does everything have a price? to do that (aka study “the economy” as a non-economics social scientist) we need to study its the origins in economisation activities -​ study economisation = how things get economized and why? Thais challenges traditional economic theories that see the economy as something abstract, an autonomous system governed by universal laws What is the Formalist Vs Formative position Caliskan & Callon: Substantivist debate “The economy” only exists because of economics and economization. about what is “the Economics defines what are the objects and qualifies them as economic. economy? in that case, should study ECONOMIC BEHAVIORS/ ACTIONS (NOT “the economy”) → start from economization processes → the economy is socially constructed, not a natural objective force → The ways we understand it are shaped by human practices, technologies, and economic knowledge that are all subject to transformation. → see it as a process, how economic practices emerge and evolve through complex interactions rather then abstract models “ If we describe exchange systems and practices in economic terms, what is covered and what is excluded?” → we should then talk about economic behavior and not “the economy” → economy defined by its object ! economy, under the formalist position is then the study of utility maximization under conditions of scarcity Substantvist Position - Karl Polanyi: The economy is always embedded in social relationships. It is everything a society does to reproduce itself and meet material needs -​ activities such as transactions, practices, institutions are integrated into and shaped by a broader social, cultural, and political system -​ are not just a set behaviors and self regulating system with laws (formalist) but a SOCIAL INSTITUTION that exists in a particular historical and cultural system -​ cannot be studied as it operated in isolation -​ circulation of goods is not mediated by economic behavior… rather by institutions! What are the key Formalist Substantivist differences between the - rational economic behavior -Embedded in socio-cultural contexts two positions? focused on maximization not just about acting rationally - individuals follow universal - Circulation of goods are embedded  “formal” rules in economic behavior within socially and culturally specific that apply anywhere institutional arrangements and social relations - Methodological individualism - Historical and cultural specificity focus on individual actions & choices rules are constructed and context specific -Actions are separate from society - focus on institutions and how they bc they are universal, markets are shape social behavior self regulating - Markets are social constructs role depends on other institutions Formalist, Caliskan & Callon= rational, universal, individual-focused, detached from social context Substantivist, Polanyi = Socially embedded, context-specific, collective-focused and historically contingent From markets to Usually, we tend do go more the formalist view and ignore the social view/ marketisation surrounding it → Markets can be viewed as socio-technical arrangements what makes it, so we can understand it? -​ Goods (make goods, physical and non tangible like ideas, use property rights and patents to do so) -​ Agencies (practices of giving value to things, relations of domination) -​ Market encounters (types of locations, bazar, global supply chain) -​ Price-setting (struggle and fairness) -​ Market design and maintenance -- algorithms and trust dependendo de qual perspectiva ou instrumento a gente usa - muda nossa visão sobre economia….. How we observe things makes a huge difference…. Example of marketisation Chaco Region Case in Paraguai + Mango and pineapple in Ghana → Huge biodiversity in the region → Life forms are being displaced but we are destroying that to produce soy to feed pigs in Amsterdam …. → European food/nutritional system is coupled with soy production and biodiversity in Paraguai Losing forests + exploitation of the south Usually economists only look at the maximization model to calculate supply and demand… The thing is that MANY things do not get taken into consideration and are not in that equation….. The factors that influence demand for soy are usually seen as more local factors → but there's more! -​ act as if what's outside of that model did not exist… only care about what determines the price…. -​ should not be this way! Suddenly: ban on GMOs Germany starts importing BR bc it was the first country to react → this changed the patterns and changed the market! In ghana: locked to European demand for mangos and pineapples and have less money to buy food in their own countries… didn't need to do that. SO: MARKETISATION AS FUNDAMENTAL TRANSFORMATION OF SOC. Key takeaways of - Everything gets reduced to transactions costs seven if it’s not just that marketisation? - They can even know about it but don't give it time of day because doesn't fit the equilibrium/maximization model → econometrics make marketisation only in a very specific way…. → If markets shape how we live together then we should study them as socio-technical arrangements, empirically, like other social sciences → ideally: combine it: economic principles + social analysis of implications → need to study it as a whole… it's no “invisible hand”, it's our decisions → Design (algorithmic) tools to deal with marketization with care! → need to make marketisation processes transparent so public about this can form