Conveners
Social Aspects of Networking Environment Today
- Cosima Rughinis (University of Bucharest)
In this paper, we discuss how to understand and integrate the diverse ethical perspectives which emerge in the design, deployment, and application of AI systems. Drawing on qualitative content analysis of comments written on /r/Ethics, /r/Technology and /r/Futurology subreddits (n=145), written between July 2023 and June 2025, we identified three main folk theories regarding the ethical future...
This paper examines the association between students’ attitudes toward digitalization and their entrepreneurial readiness in Romanian technical and vocational high schools. We analyze 11th–12th graders (16–19) engaged in the Practice Firm (PE) or Firma de Exercitiu (FE) program, a pedagogical simulation of a real company. Using a sample of 700+ respondents, we combine descriptive statistics,...
In this study, we evaluate the reliability and methodological implications of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) models, specifically ChatGPT, in classifying nuanced vaccination stances expressed in online debates. We analyzed 295 comments from three Reddit threads discussing vaccination using multiple measurements with different ChatGPT model versions (4o and 4.5). Each comment was...
Over the last decade, cities have become increasingly digitalized with the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies. While these changes encompass economic, technological, and infrastructure transformation, citizens remain at the core of the cities as users, co-creators, and beneficiaries of AI urban innovations. Our study presents a bibliometric text-mining analysis of literature...
As artificial intelligence systems increasingly shape public discourse, a growing number of online discussions speculate whether AI could replace human politicians. This study applies generative thematic analysis to explore how Reddit users have debated this prospect across a ten-year span. We analyze four threads—two from 2015–2017 and two from 2024–2025—containing a total of 374 comments....
This study analyzes public discourse on conspiracy theories related to artificial intelligence (AI) by examining four Reddit threads from the r/conspiracy subreddit, posted between mid-2023 and mid-2024. The dataset includes over 200 user comments discussing the role of AI in surveillance, media manipulation, labor displacement, and political influence. We apply a generative thematic analysis...
This paper investigates how generative AI is shaping the everyday experience of time. Using the sociological concept of time work as an analytical lens, we analyze Reddit user discourse to understand how this technology is integrated into daily temporal practices. Our analysis shows that while users employ AI for established tasks like planning and task acceleration, they also engage in novel...