[Air-L] Call for Abstracts: Human-AI feedback loops in platformized consumption - (STS Conference, Milano)

[Alessandro Caliandro]

We are excited to announce the Call for Abstracts for the upcoming 10th STS
Italia Conference “Technoscience for Good: Designing, Caring and
Reconfiguring” which will be held on 11-13 June 2025 at the Politecnico di
Milano, Milan (Italy) – (
https://stsitalia.org/news/10th-sts-italia-conference-technoscience-for-good-call-for-abstracts-published-deadline-february-3-2025/).


In particular, we invite you to submit an abstract to our panel: *Human-AI
feedback loops in platformized consumption* (Convenors: Massimo Airoldi,
Alessandro Gandini, Gabriella Punziano & Alessandro Caliandro)

(further details here:
https://stsitalia.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/23.Human-AI-feedback-loops-in-platformized-consumption-ID_45.pdf).


The panel encourages the study of platformized human-AI interactions in
light of the notion of ‘*feedback loop*’. From a cybernetic perspective,
feedback mechanisms make learning possible to both humans and machines.
When platform users and recommender systems interact, feedback-based
learning regularly happens both ways: on the one hand, AI recommendations
expose users to selections of content they “may also like”, orchestrating
their digital consumption habits; on the other, based on users’ datafied
behaviour, machine learning systems iteratively update their parameters,
aiming to better anticipate future consumption desires.

Focusing on this complex phenomenon, the panel tries to address some key
questions, such as: *What are the effects of human-AI feedback loops on
platformized consumption and “consumer culture” more broadly?* *How does
the accelerated temporality of online content consumption habits intersect
with the predictive habits (and habitus) of machines? In what ways can we
trace and interpret the recursive interactions between the users of TikTok,
Instagram, YouTube or Spotify, and the opaque recommender algorithms at
work within such data-intensive infrastructures?*

Contributions may cover, from both a theoretical and methodological
perspective, the following topics (but are not limited to):

·         feedback loops, AI recommendations and the platformization of
consumer culture;

·         the interplay between platform personalization and
(more-than-human) habits;

·         how feedback loops vary across social categories and platformized
cultures;

·         market infrastructures and the engineering of feedback loops;

·         platform-based feedback loops in music streaming and cultural
consumption;

·         cross-platform analyses of human-AI feedback loops;

·         innovative methodological solutions in the study of platformized
consumption.



Abstracts (500 words max) are due by February 3, 2025.

Further information about the submission process and key deadlines can be
found here: https://stsitalia.org/call-for-abstracts/



We look forward to receiving your contributions and seeing you in Milano!



Best Wishes

Massimo Airoldi, Alessandro Gandini, Gabriella Punziano, Alessandro
Caliandro

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Alessandro Caliandro
Associate Professor in Sociology of Culture and Communication

Researcher V-DATA project (Surveillance Capitalism in Italy):
https://vdataresearch.com/
Research Stream 3 Leader of ACTIVE-IT:
https://ageingsocieties.unimib.it/active-it/
Member of Ageing Societies: https://ageingsocieties.unimib.it/

Università degli Studi di Pavia
Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e Sociali
Strada Nuova 65
27100 Pavia

phone: 0382 984325
e-mail: alessandro.caliandro at unipv.it
Alessandro Caliandro's Personal Meeting Room (ZOOM)
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8629741587

*If you please, check out my most recent publications ; ) *

Caliandro, A., Gandini, A., Bainotti, L., & Anselmi, G. (2024). The
Platformization of Consumer Culture: A Digital Methods Guide. Amsterdam
University Press [OPEN ACCESS].
https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/90094

Caliandro, A., Gandini, A., Bainotti, L., & Anselmi, G. (2024). The
platformization of consumer culture: A theoretical framework. *Marketing
Theory*, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/14705931231225537