Multidisciplinary Institute in Artificial intelligence
Marie Ghis Malfilatre,
Research Fellow CNRS,
marie.ghis-malfilatre@umrpacte.fr
The growing promises surrounding AI innovations in healthcare sector require empirical studies to understand the motivations and experiences of professionals and patients in designing, adopting or rejecting these technologies. The Algorithmic Care Chair analyzes the deployment of AI in the healthcare system by coordinating sociological studies on the trajectories of algorithmic innovation in different specialties (e.g., emergency medicine, geriatrics, sleep disorders, physiology, environmental health) and institutions (nursing homes, private medicine, hospital) and across the various purposes of algorithms (e.g., diagnostic support, prediction of patient pathways, monitoring, therapeutic strategy support, public health surveillance). This exploration is carried out through the analysis of both existing and developing use cases.
Following an ethnographic approach (direct observations and qualitative interviews) and combining sociology of work, sociology of health and illness and STS, the Algorithmic Care Chair aims to :
1) Study the ways in which algorithms are designed, the « invisible work », the new activities and collaborations that are required throughout the « sociotechnical chain » for AI to function and make sense
2) Understand the contrasting uses, experiences and valuations of these systems by the different stakeholders as well as their impact on work organization, professional knowledge, decision-making and the tensions their deployment may give rise to.
The Algorithmic Care project, leveraging the sociological expertise of the PACTE laboratory, the former Algorithmic Society Chair, and the healthcare AI algorithm expertise of the HP2 laboratory, seeks to thoroughly investigate the algorithmization of health. As part of an interdisciplinary effort, the Chair seeks to anticipate the possible social consequences of algorithms by producing a critical analysis of the design and deployment of these technologies, paying attention to their failures, complexity and unexpected consequences. The Chair will also contribute to the broader debate on the limits of technoscientific solutions to current challenges facing the healthcare system.
A postdoctoral researcher in sociology is expected to be hired to start an ethnographic study at the beginning of 2026. Two others contracts will be published in 2026.
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