Generative AI and artificial sociality

The conference Generative AI and Artificial Sociality will take place on 27th - 28th October 2025 at the Aula Magna of Palazzo del Rettorato (via Po 17 - Torino). The event is organised by Simone Natale and Viviana Patti with the support of SSST and the ASSI Network.

Trained mainly through data produced by humans, the content generated by generative AI reproduces social patterns and biases present in the data. AI does not only simulate 'intelligence', therefore, but also social behavior and bias. Recent research has shown, for example, how AI models such as ChatGPT adapt their responses to meet criteria of social desirability (Salecha et al., 2024), and the case of "companion chatbots" such as Replika has stimulated discussions about the social uses of these technologies.

This international symposium brings together leading international scholars, from both the social sciences and computer science, to explore and discuss the dynamics and implications related to these processes. Topics will include the reproduction or amplification of biases related to gender, class and race by generative AI, the integration of social mechanisms and patterns in the language production of LLMs and other generative AI applications, companion chatbots, and the problem of potential user manipulation based on inviting social interactions with machines.