A new article, "Synthetic Ethnography: Field Devices for the Qualitative Study of Generative Models," published on December 18, 2024, in Big Data & Society, introduces "synthetic ethnography," a novel approach to studying generative artificial intelligence (AI).
Authored by Gabriele de Seta (University of Bergen), Matti Pohjonen, and Aleksi Knuutila (HSSH, University of Helsinki), the paper explores how ethnographic research methods could respond to recent developments in generative AI. It introduces three innovative "field devices" for studying generative AI systems: creative participation in AI communities, exploration of AI models as trace archives, and speculative modelling through latent walks.
"We were experimenting with ways to study AI that were not just based on observing it from the outside but allowed researchers to repurpose it and actively engage with it", Aleksi Knuutila said.