Project Details
Projekt
Artificial Vision at Work: The Digital Transformation of Work as a Transformation of the Practice and Organisation of Seeing
Subject Area
Sociological Theory
History of Science
History of Science
Term
since 2023
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523799112
The digital transformation of the world of work goes hand in hand with a socio-technical use of the human sensory apparatus. This applies above all to seeing. In the course of digitalisation, seeing in the context of work is recognised as an activity that could be formalised and detached from concrete content, thus becoming the object of efforts to further automation. The dynamics in the human-machine relationship caused by the use of the corresponding technologies of artificial vision in the workplace play a central role both historically and in the present day. More recently, efforts to automate seeing have been characterised by the use of Artificial Neural Networks. In order to understand the practical, epistemic and organisational consequences of the digital transformation of seeing in the workplace, the project combines approaches from the sociology of work with those from the theory of science and the history of technology. We investigate how the neural models of seeing emerge and are transformed, how they permeate concrete areas of work and lead to a specific transformation of such work. The project thus understands the phenomenon of the digitalisation of work as a complex socio-technical process that is based on historical dynamics of both the use and development of technology. To this end, it is necessary to trace the social production and use of technologies of artificial vision back to the underlying conceptual models of seeing and the way they are technologically implemented. In this way, the project enables both sociological and historical analysis of the processes of ‘permeating’, ‘making available’ and ‘perpetuating’ in respect to artificial vision in the work place. The project investigates practices, models, and lines of research and development related to human and machine vision. The field "Practices" examines the forms of embedding and consequences of artificial vision on the levels of work action (micro level), work organisation (meso level), and occupations and professions (macro level). In two qualitative case studies in medicine and industrial visual inspection, concrete ways of using artificial vision (substitutive vs. complementary) will be examined. The focal points of the case studies are taken up in the field of "Research & Development" and examined in the context of the history of science and technology. The historical investigation of the conditions under which the models emerged will elaborate their epistemic and technical implications and, as a central focus of R&D, will embed and prepare the scientific-theoretical analysis planned for the field "Models". The models addressed in this field are not only historically relevant but are directly related to the forms of embedding and consequences of the digital transformation on contemporary work settings investigated in Practices.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
