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Investigating sociotechnical dynamics within a military context: the influence of AI on different levels of the Dutch Military Organization

description

In recent years, the application of AI and Data Science has increased exponentially in the military domain. The Dutch Defence Organization recognizes the importance of these developments and foresees a major impact on many aspects of military operational action and management (Ministerie van Defensie, 2023). An important line of action is to integrate technologies like AI and Data Science into organizational processes, while keeping in mind ethical and legal considerations (Ministerie van Defensie, 2022).

To do this in a successful way, an applied perspective is needed to understand the entanglement between social practices, technological artefacts, and systemic organizational features (Kramer & Van Os, 2023). The Socio-Technical Systems approach is a way to cope with this, providing a powerful tool to fill the gap between social knowledge and technological knowledge (Ropohl, 1999). These systems are made up by several elements, including infrastructure, technology, regulation, science, and user practices (Geels & Kemp, 2007).

The aim of this project is to create more attention for the impact of AI on military organizations and how to best implement it (considering different organizational levels), using the Socio-Technical Systems approach as a common thread. By focusing on several aspects of sociotechnical systems, a substantial contribution is made to the scientific debates about AI and human-technological-organizational relations.

This project focuses on the interaction between AI-applications and humans within a military organizational context. Students are free to focus on ethical, organizational, or technical aspects of AI, as long as there is a link to the sociotechnical organizational context and a focus on psychological mechanisms.

Research questions

The research questions we could answer in this project:

1. How does a particular AI application affect human trust?

2. What requirements must AI meet to work with humans in a meaningful way?

3. What requirements must humans meet to work with AI in a meaningful way?

Type of research

Depending on the topic: in-depth interviews or case studies

Key words

AI-implementation, STS-approach, Military-Organization

Literature

Information

This project is open to 2 students.

Are you interested in this topic for your thesis? Please contact the theme coordinator Lynn Weiher: l.weiher@utwente.nl