The new Why Social Science? post comes from Dr. Rayvon Fouché from Northwestern University who writes about how social science can provide valuable history, context, and interpretive perspectives to help inform our societies moving forward.
For those reading nearly any media outlet during 2023, it is hard to miss the fact that Artificial Intelligence (AI)–in all its varied manifestations–is a regularized component of public discussion and debate. The celebrated and feared emergence of ChatGPT in late 2022, the Writers Guild of America strike and the concerns that writing would cease to be a human endeavor, and the recent firing and subsequent rehiring of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman clearly illustrate that AI is having a moment. So much so that prediction and forecasting site Metaculus is tracking to see if Time's person of the year for 2023 will be AI. Honestly, it is hard to argue against this idea. But before we get too far down a path of contending and arguing that an AI revolution will fundamentally transform the world in which we live, perhaps we should consider what social science can tell us and has told us about the longitudinal impacts of technological change on society. The interdisciplinary world of Science & Technology Studies can provide a window into how new and emerging technologies impact how we live on the planet.
Science & Technology Studies as a field of inquiry that emerged in the middle of the twentieth century, bringing together those interested and invested in better understanding the ways science and technology impacted society. Situated within broader discussions about science "and" society, and science "for" society, early work–exemplified by Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions–aimed to reveal the deep social roots of scientific discovery and technological innovation.