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Portrait of Isak Engdahl. Photo: Jakob Roséen.

Isak Engdahl

Doctoral student

Portrait of Isak Engdahl. Photo: Jakob Roséen.

Pixels and Weights : The Situated Work of Teaching Computers to See

Author

  • Isak Engdahl

Summary, in English

The uses of artificial intelligence are increasing across many areas of contemporary society, including computer vision systems involving machine learning and artificial neural networks. These systems rearrange action possibilities and are often described as “black boxes” that challenge conventional modes of scientific understanding and engineering control. It is important to understand the activities through which such systems are constructed. The aim of this dissertation is to analyze the situated work involved in constructing computer vision components and systems: how research and development take shape in practice. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in computer vision research labs, the dissertation analyzes how computer vision scientists make computers capable of ‘seeing’. Adopting a pragmatist–interactionist perspective, the dissertation treats science and engineering as hybrid forms of collective action where scientists interact with computational objects and research apparatuses. The analysis follows three lines of their work: model development, the construction of evaluative benchmark datasets, and the implementation of models in new contexts. The first study argues that daily laboratory activity is organized through articulation work and pipeline welding, where computational components are integrated into operational models. These models become epistemically opaque yet meaningful through shared interpretive work in relationally sustained awareness contexts. The second study analyzes the creation of a benchmark dataset, showing how standards and protocols depend on less-visible alignment work to hold cooperation together. The third study investigates trajectories in which scientists adapt pre-trained models to local contexts, and develops the idea of a social license to capture how researchers coordinate expertise and effort when reconstructing external models for local use. This social license helps actors manage trajectories and navigate the contingencies that arise as models are adapted to new settings. The dissertation advances an interactionist and processual understanding of computational knowledge production, foregrounding the collective work that makes computer vision systems function beyond narratives of exceptionalism, crisis, or autonomy.

Department/s

  • Sociology

Publishing year

2025-11

Language

English

Publication/Series

Lund Dissertations in Sociology

Issue

143

Document type

Dissertation

Publisher

Lund University

Topic

  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Anthropology, Demography and Criminology)

Keywords

  • lab ethnography
  • situated work
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • Computer Vision
  • Machine Learning (ML)
  • model development
  • benchmark datasets
  • model implementation
  • Science and Technology Studies (STS)

Status

Published

Project

  • Show & Tell: Scientific representation, algorithmically generated visualizations, and evidence across epistemic cultures
  • Machine Pedagogy

Supervisor

  • Alison Gerber
  • David Wästerfors

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1102–4712
  • ISBN: 978-91-8104-692-2
  • ISBN: 978-91-8104-691-5

Defence date

28 November 2025

Defence time

13:15

Defence place

LUX Aula, Nedre. Helgonavägen 3, 223 62 Lund

Opponent

  • Malte Ziewitz (Associate Professor)