AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines

Stephen Cave · Kanta Dihal · Sarah Dillon

May 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by P.J. Ochlan

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13 hr 10 min

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About this audiobook

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. 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.

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About the author

P. J. Ochlan, an Audie Award-winning and multiple AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator, has recorded hundreds of audiobooks. His acting career spans more than thirty years and has also included Broadway, the New York Shakespeare Festival, critically acclaimed feature films, and regular roles in television series.

Stephen Cave is executive director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, senior research associate in the Faculty of Philosophy, and fellow of Hughes Hall, all at the University of Cambridge. His research interests currently focus on the nature, portrayal and governance of AI.

Kanta Dihal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. In her research, she explores how fictional and nonfictional stories shape the development and public understanding of artificial intelligence.

Sarah Dillon is university lecturer in literature and film in the Faculty of English, University of Cambridge. Her books include The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory, Deconstruction, Feminism, Film, and Listen: Narrative Evidence and Public Reasoning, coauthored with Claire Craig.

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