CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 22Cybernetics and Technology in SocietyInformation Systems Theories and ImplementationEthics and Social Impacts of AI

Synthetic Socio-Technical Systems: Poiêsis as Meaning Making

Open access
Bisconti, Piercosma, McIntyre, Andrew, Russo, Federica·2024·Philosophy & Technology
DOI 10.1007/s13347-024-00778-0
Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

With the recent renewed interest in AI, the field has made substantial advancements, particularly in generative systems. Increased computational power and the availability of very large datasets has enabled systems such as ChatGPT to effectively replicate aspects of human social interactions, such as verbal communication, thus bringing about profound changes in society. In this paper, we explain that the arrival of generative AI systems marks a shift from ‘interacting through’ to ‘interacting with’ technologies and calls for a reconceptualization of socio-technical systems as we currently understand them. We dub this new generation of socio-technical systems synthetic to signal the increased interactions between human and artificial agents, and, in the footsteps of philosophers of information, we cash out agency in terms of ‘poiêsis’. We close the paper with a discussion of the potential policy implications of synthetic socio-technical system.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s13347-024-00778-0

Cites

31 of 31 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • AIGC reshapes the epistemic conditions under which societies construct, verify, and contest knowledge.

    “Beyond introducing artificial content, AIGC reshapes the epistemic conditions under which societies construct, verify, and contest knowledge (Bisconti et al., 2024).”

    From Deepfakes, Democracy, and the Ethics of Synthetic Media: A Synthesis of the SOLARIS Project (2026) · cites this paper as Bisconti et al., 2024

    The Introduction (p. 3) and §4 (p. 14) argue that generative AI contributes to collective knowledge and changes how human and artificial agents produce it. Section 3 (p. 11) also discusses how AI-generated content is perceived and believed. The copy does not establish the further claim that AIGC reshapes how societies verify and contest knowledge. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • A deepfake never exists in isolation: its meaning depends on the discourses that accompany it, users' comments, platforms, viewing devices, and intertextual frameworks.

    “As already noted, a deepfake never exists in isolation: its meaning depends on the discourses that accompany it, the users' comments, the platforms that host it, the viewing devices, and the intertextual frameworks into which it is inserted -this is the network approach developed by SOLARIS project (see McIntyre et al., 2025, Bisconti et al., 2024).”

    From Deepfakes, Democracy, and the Ethics of Synthetic Media: A Synthesis of the SOLARIS Project (2026) · cites this paper as Bisconti et al., 2024

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 32 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 8

  1. Aquilino, L., Bisconti, P., & Marchetti, A. (2024). Trust in AI: Transparency, and uncertainty reduction. Development of a new theoretical framework. In CEUR workshop proceedings (pp. 19-26). CEURWS.org.
  2. Coeckelbergh, M. (2016). In G. David, F. J, & M. D (Eds.), Alterity ex Machina: The Encounter with Technology as an epistemological-ethical drama (pp. 181-196). Rowman & Littlefield.
  3. del Campo, M., & Leach, N. (2022). Machine hallucinations: Architecture and Artificial Intelligence . Wiley.
  4. Duffy, B. R., Rooney, C., O'Hare, G. M. P., & O'Donoghue, R. (1999). What is a social robot? 10th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence \& Cognitive Science, University College Cork, Ireland, 1-3 September, 1999.
  5. Ihde, D. (1990). Technology and the Lifeworld: From Garden to Earth . Indiana University Press.
  6. Latour, B., & Law, J. (1992). (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) Pp, 254-258.
  7. Simondon, G. (2020). Individuation in light of notions of form and information . University of Minnesota Press.
  8. Verbeek, P. P. (2016). Toward a theory of Technological Mediation A Program for Postphenomenological Research (pp. 189-204). Technoscience and Postphenomenology. The Manhattan Papers.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Bisconti, P., McIntyre, A., & Russo, F.
Affiliations
University of Amsterdam (NL)
ORCID
Venue
Philosophy & Technology
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2024-07-16
Volume
37
Issue
3
ISSN
  • 2210-5433 (ISSN-L)
  • 2210-5441
DOI
10.1007/s13347-024-00778-0
OpenAlex
W4400688416
Cited by
21
References
32
Citations by year
2026: 14 · 2025: 7
FWCI
31.24
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Philosophy & Technology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • UvA-DARE (University of Amsterdam) (acceptedVersion, cc-by)
  • Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
  • PhilPapers (PhilPapers Foundation) (submittedVersion)
Funders
HORIZON EUROPE Culture, Creativity and Inclusive society (101094665)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Cybernetics and Technology in Society
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Information Systems Theories and Implementation
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Ethics and Social Impacts of AI
Keywords
poiesis, meaning-making, generative AI, human-AI interaction, agency, socio-technical systems, AI policy, ChatGPT, human-technology interaction

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review