Isabella Hermann

Fri, November 19, 2021 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM CST

Registration

Isabella Hermann will be presenting her recent work, published in AI & Society, on how science fiction shapes our discussion of ethics and regulation of AI, and how this distorts our perceptions of how AI's affects on society.

Abstract

Science-fiction (SF) has become a reference point in the discourse on the ethics and risks surrounding artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, AI in SF—science-fictional AI—is considered part of a larger corpus of ‘AI narratives’ that are analysed as shaping the fears and hopes of the technology. SF, however, is not a foresight or technology assessment, but tells dramas for a human audience. To make the drama work, AI is often portrayed as human-like or autonomous, regardless of the actual technological limitations. Taking science-fictional AI too literally, and even applying it to science communication, paints a distorted image of the technology's current potential and distracts from the real-world implications and risks of AI. These risks are not about humanoid robots or conscious machines, but about the scoring, nudging, discrimination, exploitation, and surveillance of humans by AI technologies through governments and corporations. AI in SF, on the other hand, is a trope as part of a genre-specific mega-text that is better understood as a dramatic means and metaphor to reflect on the human condition and socio-political issues beyond technology.

Speaker Bio

Isabella Hermann is a speaker, author and curator in the field of science fiction. For her, the fascination of the genre lies in the fact that it connects our modern, technologized world with our primeval hopes and fears as well as with current social trends. Holding a doctorate in International Relations, she is generally concerned with how science fiction and visions of technology construct and reflect sociopolitical structures and world politics. Isabella is also co-director of the Berlin Sci-fi Filmfest. She acted as scientific coordinator of an interdisciplinary research project on AI and human responsibility at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Until recently, she was program director of the Present Futures Forum at the Technical University Berlin.