Since its inception in the 1950s, the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been nurtured by the dream that it will lead to forms of consciousness and intelligence 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 historical trajectory of AI from the Turing Test to contemporary generative AI models such as ChatGPT, but also from comparisons with bodies of histories that apparently have little to do with AI, I will show that deception is fundamental to the very functioning of AI, and the so-called “intelligence” of machines primarily resides in the perception of human users.

Bio
Simone Natale is Associate Professor in Media Theory and History at the University of Turin, Italy, and an Editor of the journal Media, Culture & Society. He is the author of numerous publications including his monograph Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test (Oxford University Press, 2021), which has been translated into Chinese, Italian, and Portuguese. Before returning to work in his hometown in Italy in 2020, he has taught and researched at institutions including Columbia University, US, Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, Humboldt University and the University of Cologne in Germany, and Loughborough University in the UK.