It is essential to consider what new technologies mean to the people who use them and the ways in which they are experienced and used. In the context of public transit services in Saskatoon, understanding what the recent changes from a manual to an electronic/automated system means to users and the broader community is critically important to the overall assessment of the service. Investigating users’ lived experiences and interpretations of technical artifacts is valuable to understanding socio-technical relations or the embodied interactions of humans and machines as “technologies-in-practice.” Research into socio-technical relations has primarily focused on large scale technological systems and expert practices while less attention has been paid to “seemingly mundane” technologies or technical artifacts routinely used in everyday life. At the same time, this preoccupation has overshadowed or downplayed the importance of exploring users’ experiences and interpretations of technologies. The goal of this research is to contribute to the sociological understanding of mundane technologies-in-practice and socio-technical relations more broadly. In order to gain insight into this relationship, this thesis focuses on bus riders’ (users) and the community’s perceptions of the Go-Pass smartcard and electronic fare system used by the public transit service in Saskatoon. The perspectives of Go-Pass users and community stakeholders (n=15) were investigated using qualitative semi-structured interviews to gain deeper understanding into the complex relationship between users and technologies. Drawing from Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the sociology of technology literature, I propose that a sociomaterial theoretical perspective following a mutual shaping framework offers insight into socio-technical relations. Both critical and feminist technology studies literature has been helpful for developing an understanding of the wider social and political contexts of technical use which underscores this study. In particular, the conceptual insights of “socio-technical assemblages” (Suchman, 2007) and “intra-action” (Barad, 2003) have been helpful tools for exploring agency, subjectivity and power which is key to uncovering the intricacies of socio-technical relations and human-machine interaction. The four main themes emerging from this study were: 1) shifting human-machine roles and relationships; 2) the socio-technical construction of the bus rider; 3) configuring users’ and technologies; and 4) structural issues and social justice implications of technologies-in-practice. The findings demonstrate that the use of this new system is mutually co-constructed by both social and technical factors whereby both the users and the technology inform perceptions and use. There was also the unexpected connection between users’ everyday situated uses, experiences and interpretations of the Go-Pass technologies to wider social-political contexts. There were a number of issues raised in relation to the implementation of the Go-Pass system which had negative effects or unintended social and technical consequences particularly for those most marginalized economically. At the same time, there were important benefits and positive effects on riders’ quality of life and use of the service. Finally, participants’ perspectives have contributed to understanding what the Go-Pass technologies mean to them, the ways in which they are used in practice and the ways in which the mixing of people and seemingly mundane technologies shape relations in everyday settings.

Generative AI systems for image-creation have taken a giant leap technologically in the last few years, creating opportunities for users and introducing new areas of research for the scientific community. New implementations for these technologies are discovered regularly and due to the complex nature of AI, there is an ongoing discussion among researchers on whether generative AI is yet another tool, or if there is potential for the technology to be something more. The aim of this study is to explore the nuances and complexity of co-creation with generative AI, using post-human and post-anthropocentric perspectives that consider human agencies as entangled with machine agency. To understand whether human-AI co-creation is sustainable and valuable as an activity, a netnographic study was conducted to explore the different aspects of user interaction. Among the most relevant of these aspects were the system limitations, dataset limitations, prompting, user goals and user procedures. The study found that the current limitations to the generative AI systems were too significant for the systems to display a high amount of machine agency. This ultimately pointed to human-AI co-creation being non-sustainable and non-valuable as an activity, but the resultsand following discussion also suggest how we can move on overcoming these limitations. / Generativa AI-system för bildskapande har teknologiskt tagit ett stort kliv framåt de senaste åren, detta har lett till möjligheter för användare och det har introducerat nya forskningsområden för forskarvärlden. Nya tillämpningar för dessa teknologier upptäcks regelbundet. På grund av den komplexa naturen hos AI så pågår en diskussion bland forskare gällande huruvida generativ AI är ett nytt verktyg, eller om det finns potential för teknologin att vara något mer. Denna studies mål är att undersöka nyanserna och komplexiteten hos samskapande med generativ AI, genom att använda post-humanistiska och post-antropocentriska perspektiv som betraktar mänsklig ”agency” som sammanflätad med maskiners ”agency”. För att förstå huruvida människa-AI-samskapande är hållbart och värdefullt så utfördes en netnografisk undersökning för att granska de olika aspekterna med användarinteraktion. Bland de mest relevanta av dessa aspekter var systembegränsningarna, datasetsbegränsningarna, promptning, användarmål och användarprocedurer. Undersökningen visade att de nuvarande begränsningarna hos generativa AI-system är för stora för att systemen skulle kunna uppvisa en hög grad ”maskin-agens”. Detta pekade i slutändan mot att människa-AI-samskapande är ohållbart och icke värdefullt som en aktivitet. Men resultaten och den följande diskussionen antyder också hur vi kan gå vidare med att övervinna dessa begränsningar.

Through an experimental theatre play, this thesis explores the development of human-like agency in contemporary “social robot” technology. The entrance point of this study is the gender gap and lack of diversity in contemporary AI/robot development, with an emerging need for interdisciplinary research across robot technology and social sciences. Using feminist technoscience and critical posthumanism as the theoretical framework, this research involves an analysis of a particular social robot case, currently being developed at Furhat Robotics in Stockholm. Inspired by Judy Wajcman (2004), I analyze how socially intelligent machines impact perceptions of human agency, body, gender, and identity within cultural contexts and through interaction. The first part of the empirical research is carried out in the robot-lab. The robot is then, in the second part, invited to perform as an actor in a theatre play. Entangled amidst the other players and audience members, a queered agency starts to reveal itself through human-machine “intra-action” and embodiment (Barad 2003). Human-like agency in machines is shown to be a complex matter, drawing the conclusion that human-beings are vulnerable to a myriad of entanglements and preconceptions that artificial intelligence potentially embodies.