Can ChatGPT do public sociology? Public scholarship, AI and platform capitalism with Mark Carrigan

Can ChatGPT do public scholarship in education, sociology and related disciplines? The question might seem frivolous at a time when generative AI is generating widespread anxiety within universities about the integrity of assessment. However, I suggest it helps us understand the profound implications which these systems have for sociological practice. Drawing on my research into how academics use social media and generative AI, I argue that conversational agents can support public scholarship in concrete and practical ways. However, this possibility needs to be understood against the backdrop of platform capitalism within which these tools have emerged. Far from being a radical break with what came before, generative AI represents an intensification of the dynamics which defined social media platforms: the enclosure of social activity as training data, the computational processing of human experience and the commodification of interaction. Under these conditions, the capacity of conversational agents to support public scholarship exists in tension with their contribution to a deteriorating digital public sphere. Understanding this tension through the lens of sociological practice can help us negotiate between the opportunities and threats which generative AI poses for public scholarship, as well as suggesting how we might contribute to the development of more sustainable digital platforms which could support rather than undermine public scholarship.
 
Dr Mark Carrigan is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester where he is programme director for the MA Digital Technologies, Communication and Education (DTCE) and co-lead of the DTCE Research and Scholarship group. Trained as a philosopher and sociologist, his research aims to bridge fundamental questions of social ontology with practical and policy interventions to support the effective use of emerging technologies within education. He has written or edited eight books, including Social Media for Academics, published by Sage and now in its second edition. His latest book Generative AI for Academics was released by Sage in 2024.

For more information email anna.bull@york.ac.uk