Towards a Socioeconomics of Hype: Hype Dynamics and Symbolic Boundary Work Within the Speculative AI Bubble

IF 2.7 2区社会学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPLICATIONS

Social Science Computer Review Pub Date : 2025-07-19 DOI:10.1177/08944393251361935

Jason Bohner, Janet Vertesi

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Abstract

Drawing on interviews with 37 entrepreneurs, engineers, technologists and investors in the New York City tech scene involved in AI, we investigate the social formations that characterize “AI-hype” from the perspective of micro-level economic sociology. We observe how actors in New York draw symbolic boundaries between their own work and that of “hype-beasts” in San Francisco, despite drawing upon and profiting from the same sociotechnical imaginaries about AI’s transformative potential. We show how this symbolic boundary work serves to legitimate the local ecosystem, to provide moral valuations for the exchange of capital, to ground different temporalities that inspire urgency in their work, and to enact spatial boundaries amid competing sociotechnical imaginaries. We demonstrate how these contestations contribute to the construction of powerful relevant social groups and their respective technological systems. We thus use the case of AI to take steps toward developing a sociology of hype, drawing on literature in the sociology of technology, boundary work in the professions, and economic sociology.

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走向炒作的社会经济学：炒作动力学和投机人工智能泡沫中的符号边界工作

通过对37位参与人工智能的纽约市科技界的企业家、工程师、技术专家和投资者的采访，我们从微观经济社会学的角度研究了“人工智能炒作”的社会形态特征。我们观察到纽约的演员如何在他们自己的作品和旧金山的“炒作野兽”之间划出象征性的界限，尽管他们对人工智能的变革潜力有着同样的社会技术想象，并从中受益。我们展示了这种象征性的边界如何使当地生态系统合法化，为资本交换提供道德价值，为激发工作紧迫性的不同暂时性奠定基础，并在竞争的社会技术想象中制定空间边界。我们展示了这些争论如何有助于构建强大的相关社会群体及其各自的技术系统。因此，我们以人工智能为例，采取措施发展炒作社会学，借鉴技术社会学、专业边界工作和经济社会学中的文献。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Social Science Computer Review 社会科学-计算机：跨学科应用

CiteScore

9.00

自引率

4.90%

发文量

审稿时长

>12 weeks

期刊介绍： Unique Scope Social Science Computer Review is an interdisciplinary journal covering social science instructional and research applications of computing, as well as societal impacts of informational technology. Topics included: artificial intelligence, business, computational social science theory, computer-assisted survey research, computer-based qualitative analysis, computer simulation, economic modeling, electronic modeling, electronic publishing, geographic information systems, instrumentation and research tools, public administration, social impacts of computing and telecommunications, software evaluation, world-wide web resources for social scientists. Interdisciplinary Nature Because the Uses and impacts of computing are interdisciplinary, so is Social Science Computer Review. The journal is of direct relevance to scholars and scientists in a wide variety of disciplines. In its pages you''ll find work in the following areas: sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, psychology, computer literacy, computer applications, and methodology.