Imagining AI: How the World Sees Intelligent Machines

Imagining AI highlights diverse cultural visions of AI, challenging Hollywood narratives and revealing a global phenomenon shaped by a predominantly white, male, US-based elite. The book explores how encounters between local narratives, digital technologies, and Western narratives create new imaginaries and insights, covering ancient philosophy to contemporary science fiction and policy discourse. It is an essential work for understanding how different cultural contexts interplay with AI ethics.

Format: Hardback
Length: 448 pages
Publication date: 25 May 2023
Publisher: Oxford University Press

The book explores the diverse and varied visions of a future with intelligent machines, highlighting their potential impact on research, regulation, and implementation of AI. Structured geographically, each chapter delves into how a specific region or culture envisions intelligent machines, shedding light on how encounters between local narratives, digital technologies, and mainstream Western narratives create new imaginaries and insights across the globe. Contributors, esteemed experts from academia and the arts, examine how these narratives range from ancient philosophy to contemporary science fiction, visual art, and policy discourse, offering valuable insights into key AI ethics themes such as the differences between Chinese and American visions of AI and digital neo-colonialism. This essential work is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the complex interplay between different cultural contexts and the most significant technology of our time.

Imagining AI: Alternative Visions of a Future with Intelligent Machines

AI has become a global phenomenon, yet Hollywood narratives dominate perceptions of AI in the English-speaking West and beyond. Much of the technology itself is shaped by a disproportionately white, male, US-based elite. However, different cultures have been imagining intelligent machines since long before we could build them, in visions that vary greatly across religious, philosophical, literary, and cinematic traditions.

This book aims to spotlight these alternative visions. Imagining AI draws attention to the range and variety of visions of a future with intelligent machines and their potential significance for the research, regulation, and implementation of AI. The book is structured geographically, with each chapter presenting insights into how a specific region or culture imagines intelligent machines. The contributors, leading experts from academia and the arts, explore how the encounters between local narratives, digital technologies, and mainstream Western narratives create new imaginaries and insights in different contexts across the globe. The narratives they analyze range from ancient philosophy to contemporary science fiction, and visual art to policy discourse.

The book sheds new light on some of the most important themes in AI ethics, from the differences between Chinese and American visions of AI to digital neo-colonialism. It is an essential work for anyone wishing to understand how different cultural contexts interplay with the most significant technology of our time.

Weight: 738g
Dimension: 222 x 144 x 26 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780192865366