This book is the first to examine the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines. As real Artificial Intelligence (AI) begins to touch on all aspects of our lives, this long narrative history shapes how the technology is developed, deployed and regulated. It is therefore a crucial social and ethical issue. Part I of this book provides a historical overview from ancient Greece to the start of modernity. These chapters explore the revealing pre-history of key concerns of contemporary AI discourse, from the nature of mind and creativity to issues of power and rights, from the tension between fascination and ambivalence to investigations into artificial voices and technophobia. Part II focuses on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in which a greater density of narratives emerge alongside rapid developments in AI technology. These chapters reveal not only how AI narratives have consistently been entangled with the emergence of real robotics and AI, but also how they offer a rich source of insight into how we might live with these revolutionary machines. Through their close textual engagements, these chapters explore the relationship between imaginative narratives and contemporary debates about AI's social, ethical and philosophical consequences, including questions of dehumanization, automation, anthropomorphisation, cybernetics, cyberpunk, immortality, slavery, and governance. The contributions, from leading humanities and social science scholars, show that narratives about AI offer a crucial epistemic site for exploring contemporary debates about these powerful new technologies.
Industry Reviews
A path-breaking book that surveys the important place of narrative in the long history of the interaction between humans and intelligent machines.
All of the chapters are well researched, well argued, and informative, whether they recount a recent book by the author or present new research ... These virtues make AI Narratives a path-breaking book that surveys the important place of narrative in the long history of the interaction between humans and intelligent machines in Europe and the United States. * Ronald R. Kline, Ronald R. Kline is Bovay Professor of History and Ethics of Engineering, Emeritus, at Cornell University, Technology and Culture *
Readers will find in this volume a rewarding trove of narrative analyses that inform contemporary thinking about the social and political consequences of AI and prompt further historical investigation. * Sam Schirvar, Isis *
The editors have organized wide-ranging historical and critical materials into an admirably coherent set of chapters that focus on our age-old interests in myths, legends, and stories about artificial life, especially when it looks like us ... AI Narratives is consistently interesting and critically significant. * Veronica Hollinger, Science Fiction Studies *
... a milestone book, ... sure to become required reading for any undergraduate course on the intersection of technology and the humanities, .... * Madeleine Chalmers, Prometheus *
... consistently interesting and critically significant. * Veronica Hollinger, Science Fiction Studies, Vol 48 (2021) *
Drawing on diverse perspectives, this compelling collection shows how AI narratives have prompted critical reflection on human-machine relations, moving beyond the reductive dichotomy that pits visions of happy humans with AI-slaves against visions of defeated humans ruled by machines. By invoking such concepts as equality, rights and social justice, the essays investigate what it means to be human in an increasingly automated world. * Audrey Borowski, Times Literary Supplement *
The collection's focus on the history of imaginative thinking about intelligent machines, as well as the importance of narrative itself, offers a study that has been lacking in Al criticism. By including both literal and figurative representations of machine intelligence, the collection identifies the role of sf in the interplay between fiction and non-fiction, but brings to the fore the importance of non-sf through the exploration of narratives that intersect with understandings of Al, and engage with concepts that underpin societal understandings of machines, humans and their continued, growing coexistence. * Matthew J. Wolf-Meyer, Foundation *
a powerful account of AI imaginaries * Stephen Hughes, Public Understanding of Science Journal *
AI Narratives triumphantly paves the way for future work in AI humanities. Individual chapters-all balancing historical context with sharp analysis-would make valuable additions to relevant module syllabi, and the volume would be of certain advantage to any reader seeking a fresh and substantiated approach to AI scholarship. This is only a first glance into this kaleidoscopic field of study, but it positions future researchers well for imaginative thinking about their own perceptions. * Dr Leah Henrickson, Reviews in History *
