Imagining AI How the World Sees Intelligent Machines

Chapters 16 and 19 from this book are published open access and are free to read or download from Oxford Academic

AI is now a global phenomenon. Yet Hollywood narratives dominate perceptions of AI in the English-speaking West and beyond, and 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 analyse 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.

Stephen Cave, Director, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge,Kanta Dihal, Senior Research Fellow, Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge

Stephen Cave is Director of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on philosophy and ethics of technology, particularly AI, robotics and life-extension. He is the author of Immortality (Crown, 2012), a New Scientist book of the year, and Should We Want To Live Forever (Routledge, 2023); and co-editor of AI Narratives (Oxford University Press, 2020) and Feminist AI (Oxford University Press, 2023). He writes widely about philosophy, technology and society, including for the Guardian and Atlantic. He also advises governments around the world, and has served as a British diplomat.


Dr Kanta Dihal is a Senior Research Fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on science narratives, particularly those that emerge from conflict. She was Principal Investigator on the project 'Global AI Narratives' from 2018-2022, and currently works on 'Desirable Digitalisation', which investigates intercultural perspectives on AI and fundamental rights and values. She is co-editor of the books AI Narratives (2020) and Imagining AI (2022) and has advised the World Economic Forum, the UK House of Lords, and the United Nations. She holds a DPhil from Oxford on the communication of quantum physics.

1. Introduction, Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal
2. The Meanings of AI: a Cross-cultural Comparison, Stephen Cave, Kanta Dihal, Tomasz Hollanek, Hirofumi Katsuno, Yang Liu, Apolline Taillandier, Daniel White
Part I. Europe
3. AI Narratives and the French Touch, Madeleine Chalmers
4. The Android as a New Political Subject: The Italian Cyberpunk Comic Ranxerox, Eleonora Lima
5. German Science Fiction Literature exploring AI. Expectations, Hopes, and Fears, Hans Esselborn
6. Automatic Gnosis: On Lem's Summa Technologiae, Bogna Konior
7. Boys from a Suitcase: The Evil Robot and the Funny Robot as the main AI Concepts in Science Fiction of the USSR, Anton Pervushin
8. The Russian Imaginary of Robots, Cyborgs and Intelligent Machines: A Hundred-Year History, 1. Anzhelika Solovyeva & Nik Hynek
Part II. The Americas and Pacific
9. Fiery the Angels Fell: How Hollywood Imagines AI, Stephen Cave and Kanta Dihal
10. Afrofuturismo and the Aesthetics of Resistance to Algorithmic Racism in Brazil, Edward King
11. Artificial Intelligence in the Art of Latin America, Raul Cruz
12. Imaginaries of Technology and Subjectivity: Representations of AI in Recent Latin American Science Fiction, Macarena Areco
13. Imagining Indigenous AI, Jason Edward Lewis
14. Maoli Intelligence: Indigenous Data Sovereignty and Futurity, Noelani Arista
Part III. Africa, Middle East, and South Asia
15. From Tafa to Robu: AI in the Fiction of Satyajit Ray, Upamanyu Pablo Mukherjee
16. Algorithmic Colonization of Africa, Abeba Birhane
17. Artificial Intelligence Elsewhere: The Case of the Ogbanje, Rachel Adams
18. AI Oasis? Imagining Intelligent Machines in the Middle East and North Africa, Kanta Dihal, Tomasz Hollanek, Nagla Rizk, Nadine Weheba, Stephen Cave
Part IV. East Asia
19. Engineering Robots with Heart in Japan: The Politics of Cultural Difference in Artificial Emotional Intelligence, Daniel White & Hirofumi Katsuno
20. Development and Developmentalism of Artificial Intelligence: Decoding South Korean Policy Discourse on Artificial Intelligence, So-Young Kim
21. How Chinese Philosophy Impacts AI Narratives and Imagined AI Futures, Bing Song
22. Attitudes of Thinkers in Pre-Qin Dynasty China to Mechanical Invention and Its Influence on the Development of Technology, Baichun Zhang and Miao Tian
23. Artificial Intelligence in Chinese Science Fiction: From the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods to the Era of Deng Xiaoping, Yan Wu
24. Algorithm of the Soul: Narratives of AI in Recent Chinese Science Fiction, Feng Zhang
25. Intelligent Infrastructure, Humans as Resources, and Coevolutionary Futures: AI Narratives in Singapore, Cheryl Julia Lee and Graham Matthews