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Short abstract:

We argue that transitions from classic AI to GenAI were neither obvious nor inevitable. By rethinking “appropriation” in STS, we suggest that there was a wider range of actors, artifacts, and imaginaries, whose actions greatly impacted GenAI’s trajectory. Cui bono? Who benefits? At whose expense?

Long abstract:

While GenAI has elicited widely opposing views in various [intellectual] camps, from boosters and detractors alike, there has been little cross-disciplinary dialog particularly attuned to the complex and sustained dynamics of technology transformation and their implications within AI worlds.

We draw on appropriation—a concept widely used in STS and human-computer interaction (HCI)—defined as the adaptation or modification of artifacts by users in concert with others and with things. STS and HCI have traditionally studied appropriation using “micro” lenses, generating useful insights on user [human] action around artifacts.

In our work, we expand appropriation— through the “appropriation matrix,” a novel theoretical tool we have recently developed to study appropriation in global HCI [1]—to account for broader aspects such as continuities and discontinuities in technology use and design, and dynamic regulatory shifts and changes. To this effect, we foreground three elements of appropriation: Users, artifacts, and imaginaries. That is, appropriation in GenAI worlds includes a changing cast of users including ordinary people and research labs (both can appropriate technology!); artifacts that range from neat chat interfaces to complex AI models (where artifacts and infrastructures are recursively entangled); imaginaries which users mobilize to rationalize or motivate their actions and practices (and these range from mundane stories and folklores to towering corporate and statist policies). The orientation of the appropriation matrix towards technology transitions, with their world-disclosing properties, not only exposes tensions within GenAI worlds but also highlights who stands to benefit and at whose expense.

[1] “Rethinking appropriation,” CHI 2024, forthcoming.