Scale: The Sociomaterial Shaping of AI

In this keynote, Donald MacKenzie (University of Edinburgh) examines artificial intelligence as a sociomaterial system shaped by infrastructures, beliefs, and technological imaginaries. Focusing on scale, the talk explores the historical role of scaling in AI, the rise of large language models, and the economic and environmental costs of ever-expanding systems. The keynote concludes by questioning the promises of scaling laws and artificial general intelligence in light of diminishing returns.