Book(print)2021

Deceitful media: artificial intelligence and social life after the turing test

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Abstract

"Since its inception, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been nurtured by the dream - cherished by some scientists while dismissed as unrealistic by others - that it will lead to forms of intelligence similar or alternative to human life. However, AI might be more accurately described as a range of technologies providing a convincing illusion of intelligence - in other words, not much the creation of intelligent beings, but rather of technologies that are perceived by humans as such. Deceitful Media argues that AI resides also and especially in the perception of human users. Exploring the history of AI from its origins in the Turing Test to contemporary AI voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri, Simone Natale demonstrates that our tendency to project humanity into things shapes the very functioning and implications of AI. He argues for a recalibration of the relationship between deception and AI that helps recognize and critically question how computing technologies mobilize specific aspects of users' perception and psychology in order to create what we call "AI." Introducing the concept of "banal deception," which describes deceptive mechanisms and practices that are embedded in AI, the book shows that deception is as central to AI's functioning as the circuits, software, and data that make it run. Delving into the relationship between AI and deception, Deceitful Media thus reformulates the debate on AI on the basis of a new assumption: that what machines are changing is primarily us, humans. If 'intelligent' machines might one day revolutionize life, the book provocatively suggests, they are already transforming how we understand and carry out social interactions"--