Sociological interpretation and an attempt at interdisciplinary study of artificial sociality and artificial intelligence

The article considers the main participants of artificial sociality (people and artificial intelligence tools) and communication between them. The study is predominantly sociological but includes an attempt to address the mathematical-technological aspects of artificial intelligence as creating a new social reality for human society - artificial sociality. In the first part of the article, the authors analyze communication as the basis of sociality, using the methodology of N. Luhmann. The second part shows how mathematical technologies of artificial intelligence became social technologies in the framework of artificial sociality. The third part describes experimental communication between people and artificial intelligence tools on the example of ChatGPT. The authors conducted a sociological survey of students at the Daugavpils University (January 2024, N = 423, excluding IT students) to identify typological groups in relation to the use of artificial intelligence in education. Three “ideal types” of students were identified: “optimistic users” (18 %), “neutral testers” (17 %) and “skeptic avoiders” (10 %), and a mixed group of “testers-optimists” (31 %) - the largest group of respondents with a positive attitude towards artificial intelligence but without sufficient experience of interaction with it. According to the authors’ empirical data, there is a stratification among students in relation to artificial intelligence tools and their use in learning, which may lead to segmentation of the higher education in the future (in terms of training formats, its participants, organization of the educational process and perhaps the results of learning). The demand for an interdisciplinary approach to the study of artificial intelligence will increase, since it is interdisciplinary in nature, and no single science will be able to make a breakthrough.