{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,30]],"date-time":"2026-04-30T03:16:34Z","timestamp":1777518994911,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":24,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,7,1]],"date-time":"2023-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1688169600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This commentary starts with the question \u2018How is it that AI has come to be figured uncontroversially as a thing, however many controversies \u201cit\u201d may engender?\u2019 Addressing this question takes us to knowledge practices that philosopher of science Helen Verran has named a \u2018hardening of the categories\u2019, processes that not only characterise the onto-epistemology of AI but also are central to its constituent techniques and technologies. In a context where the stabilization of AI as a figure enables further investments in associated techniques and technologies, AI's status as controversial works to reiterate both its ontological status and its agency. It follows that interventions into the field of AI controversies that fail to trouble and destabilise the figure of AI risk contributing to its uncontroversial reproduction. This is not to deny the proliferating data and compute-intensive techniques and technologies that travel under the sign of AI but rather to call for a keener focus on their locations, politics, material-semiotic specificity, and effects, including their ongoing enactment as a singular and controversial object.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517231206794","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,9]],"date-time":"2023-11-09T03:36:05Z","timestamp":1699500965000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":158,"title":["The uncontroversial \u2018thingness\u2019 of AI"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9752-4684","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Lucy","family":"Suchman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Lancaster University, UK"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Artificial Knowing: Gender and the Thinking Machine","author":"Adam A","year":"1998"},{"key":"bibr2-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3442188.3445922"},{"key":"bibr3-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World","author":"Broussard M","year":"2019"},{"key":"bibr31-20539517231206794","unstructured":"Castelle M (2018) Deep learning as an epistemic ensemble.\n                      Castelle.org\n                      September 15. https:\/\/castelle.org\/pages\/deep-learning-as-an-epistemic-ensemble.html"},{"key":"bibr4-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1002\/j.2371-9621.2021.tb00005.x"},{"key":"bibr5-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/9781478004318"},{"key":"bibr6-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Neural Networks","author":"Dhaliwal RS","year":"2024"},{"key":"bibr7-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/03637751.2017.1375130"},{"issue":"3","key":"bibr8-20539517231206794","first-page":"32","volume":"11","author":"Guha R","year":"1990","journal-title":"AI Magazine"},{"key":"bibr9-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Modest _Witness @Second_Millenium.FemaleMan_Meets_OncoMouse\u2122: Feminism and Technoscience","author":"Haraway D","year":"1997"},{"key":"bibr10-20539517231206794","unstructured":"Heikkil\u00e4 M, Heaven WD (2022) Yann LeCun has a bold new vision for the future of AI.\n                      MIT Technology Review\n                      , June 24. https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2022\/06\/24\/1054817\/yann-lecun-bold-new-vision-future-ai-deep-learning-meta\/ (accessed May 2023)"},{"key":"bibr11-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/1600910X.2015.1020066"},{"key":"bibr12-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Introduction to the Work of Marcel Mauss","author":"Levi-Strauss C","year":"1987"},{"key":"bibr13-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.7551\/mitpress\/10302.001.0001"},{"key":"bibr14-20539517231206794","unstructured":"Marcus G (2022) Deep learning is hitting a wall.\n                      Nautilus\n                      . March 10. https:\/\/nautil.us\/deep-learning-is-hitting-a-wall-238440\/ (accessed October 2022)"},{"key":"bibr15-20539517231206794","author":"Marres N","year":"2023","journal-title":"Big Data & Society"},{"key":"bibr16-20539517231206794","unstructured":"McCarthy J, Minsky M, Rochester N, et al. (1955) A proposal for the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on artificial intelligence. http:\/\/raysolomonoff.com\/dartmouth\/boxa\/dart564props.pdf (accessed April 2023)"},{"key":"bibr17-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Human Problem Solving","author":"Newell A","year":"1972"},{"issue":"5","key":"bibr18-20539517231206794","first-page":"1","author":"Pasquinelli M","year":"2019","journal-title":"Spheres: Journal for Digital Cultures"},{"key":"bibr19-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1215\/00029831-10575021"},{"key":"bibr20-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-56286-1_1"},{"key":"bibr21-20539517231206794","unstructured":"Tucker E (2022) Artifice and intelligence.\n                      Center on Privacy & Technology, Medium\n                      . https:\/\/medium.com\/center-on-privacy-technology\/artifice-and-intelligence%C2%B9-f00da128d3cd (accessed April 2023)."},{"key":"bibr22-20539517231206794","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1080\/13688799890165"},{"key":"bibr23-20539517231206794","volume-title":"Science and the Modern World","author":"Whitehead AN","year":"1948"}],"container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/20539517231206794","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1177\/20539517231206794","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/20539517231206794","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,28]],"date-time":"2026-04-28T13:00:33Z","timestamp":1777381233000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"http:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/20539517231206794"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,7]]},"references-count":24,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,7]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/20539517231206794"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/20539517231206794","relation":{},"ISSN":["2053-9517","2053-9517"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2053-9517","type":"print"},{"value":"2053-9517","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,7]]},"article-number":"20539517231206794"}}