Unveiling AI sociotechnical imaginaries: a bottom-up analysis over Twitch’s AI-generated livestreams online communities on Discord

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence’s usage and regulation has become a highly debated topic that unveils the political, economic and technoscientific nuances between and within cultures. AI has garnered considerable attention in the public debate, being thought of and envisioned differently by national governments, technology corporations, media outlets, academia and citizenship. While previous research has focused on finding these imaginaries in support of technological advances in national policy-making, media, and the social media landscape, online communities remain largely unexplored.

The study of online communities has become an increasingly challenging research subject that comprehends a debate atmosphere that encourages the exchange of ideas, where stakeholders engage, challenge, and negotiate dominant AI discourses and imaginaries. Through a mixed-methods frame analysis, the present thesis explores and critically assesses how online communities surrounding AI-generated livestreams debate and frame AI sociotechnical imaginaries in comparison to media outlets and national policies. Unpacking these sociotechnical imaginaries has revealed the dominant presence of technologically deterministic discourses, but also the blind spots in the discussion, that portray AI as an inevitable and transformative agent in society. These discourses are mainly characterized by hiper-binary perspectives over the usage and envisioning of AI regarding its transformative potential, often overshadowing ethical considerations and critical perspectives, and augmenting AI’s capabilities even beyond its actual limits.