Prof. Dr. Christian Katzenbach has co-published a new special issue entitled “Automation in the Digital Society” together with Prof. Dr. Christian Pentzold. Automation is a defining feature of today’s societies—not only since ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence (AI) have accomplished to produce yet another wave of hype. In the new special issue, the authors explore how subjectivity, agency, and empowerment become defined and reconfigured in novel human–machine encounters and in societies which in large parts are kept going and sustained by complex digital infrastructures.
The contributions, featuring works from Peter Nagy, Gina Neff, Ph.D., Will Orr, Kate Crawford, Annika Richterich, Sally Wyatt, Ngai Keung Chan, Chi Kwok, Christian Greiffenhagen, Xinzhi Xu, Philipp Seuferling, Annette Markham, Marcus Bösch, Tom Divon, CJ Reynolds, Blake Hallinan, Jean Burgess, Nicholas Carah, Daniel Angus, Abdul Karim Obeid, Mark Andrejevic, and Joanne Kuai, span from journalistic innovations to social movements, offering critical perspectives on the growing fusion of human and machine interaction.
Highlights include lucid analyses of alluring narratives of AI magic and the datasets powering statistical projections (aka AI); the role of automation in ad serving, propaganda, journalism and copyright, social movements and collectives; automated tracking technologies in different contexts ranging from hotels to border control; and the question of accountability and social media.