Date

7-21-2026

Department

School of Communication and the Arts

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Strategic Media (PhD)

Chair

Robert Mott

Keywords

AI stewardship, AI system cards, systems theory, second-order cybernetics

Disciplines

Communication | Computer Sciences

Abstract

As the meaning of AI risk remains unsettled across sociotechnical and public discourse, AI system cards are an emergent, yet understudied, genre of technical documentation through which AI technology developers publicly frame new AI system capabilities including risks. This thematic content analysis study examines how AI technology developers coordinate meaning regarding risk and responsible development in stewardship of AI. Guided by a constitutive view of communication and systems theory, second-order cybernetics, and the cybernetic tradition, this study analyzes a purposive corpus of AI system cards collected from 2023-2025 using thematic content analysis and the hierarchy of meaning heuristic from coordinated management of meaning (CMM) theory to decode layered institutional meanings. Findings reveal that AI system cards perform beyond their basic documentary function to serve as managed membranes for structural coupling between autopoietic technical systems and the broader sociotechnical environment. Analysis identifies a convergent vocabulary of risk that prioritizes catastrophic severity while omitting broader societal harm such as the erosion of human critical thinking. AI system cards also present evidence of developers using empiricism as a shield by adopting scientific publishing conventions together with benchmark testing techniques as reflexive rituals to exercise homeostatic control while seeking to build trust with external system observers through transparency.

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