Since its inception in the 1950s, the field of 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 consciousness similar or alternative to human life. Yet, 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.

Drawing from the history of AI from the Turing Test to contemporary voice assistants such as Amazon’s Alexa, but also from comparisons with the history of spiritualism and pre-digital media histories, Professor Simone Natale will argue that AI resides also and especially in the perception of human users. The talk will present materials from his new monograph, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test, out with Oxford University Press in March 2021.

Simone Natale is Associate Professor at the University of Turin, Italy, and Principal Investigator of the AHRC-funded Circuits of Practice Project at Loughborough University, UK. He is the author of two monographs, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture (Penn State University Press, 2016), as well as of articles published in journals including New Media and Society, Communication Theory, the Journal of Communication, and Convergence. Since 2019, he has been Assistant Editor of Media, Culture & Society.