THEORIZING THE IMPACT OF GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE ON SOCIAL CAUSATION

Abstract

As a non-human agent that is capable of bringing about and influencing social outcomes, AI challenges the hegemonic anthropocentric foundations of social science. The latter's human-centered causality models are inept when it comes to conceptualizing and explaining empirical interactions between AI and human agency. Contemporary societies are already experiencing heterogeneous and intricate ways of human and non-human agents interacting throughout digital and social spheres. This study identifies several pathways through which AI-driven processes are impacting social outcomes by placing focus on generative AI and deepfakes, which exhibit complex and often hidden impacts on human behavior. As the distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal continues to blur, new theoretical and epistemological approaches will need to be developed, and integrating the phenomena-noumena distinction into discussions on technological development and posthumanism can enhance our understanding of societal change.