Artificial Intelligence as a Social Actor: Reconfiguring Power, Identity, and Agency in Contemporary Societies

Abstract

The rapid integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into everyday social systems has reshaped long-standing sociological understandings of power, identity, and human agency. This paper explores AI not merely as a technological tool but as an emerging social actor capable of influencing behaviours, shaping decision-making processes, and redefining institutional practices. Drawing on theories of symbolic interactionism, actor–network theory, and critical sociology, the study examines how AI systems mediate social interactions, produce new forms of algorithmic authority, and contribute to shifting power relations between individuals, organisations, and the state. The analysis highlights how AI-driven classifications, predictions, and automated decisions reshape identities—through profiling, personalisation, and digital surveillance—while also raising concerns over autonomy, inequality, and ethical accountability. By conceptualising AI as a socially embedded actor, the paper argues that AI technologies have begun to co-produce social realities, redistribute control, and challenge the boundaries between human and machine agency. This reconfiguration demands renewed sociological attention toward digital governance, transparency, and the societal impacts of algorithmic systems in increasingly automated environments.