Book Review

Abstract

In the scenario that sees the spread of enthusiastic, solutionist rhetoric about artificial intelligence (AI), Simone Natale's Deceitful Media is a real breath of fresh air. Not that cultural studies about AI are a new thing, but (among calls to materialism and socio-political approaches) what was missing was consideration of human-machine communication as essential to the development of knowledge and practices of AI. As the author argues, the long sustained separation between the fields of AI and human-machine communication is misleading, since the very idea of AI is historically, socially and epistemologically dependent on imagining a machine interacting and communicating with humans. A machine can show intelligence not only because it is interacting with humans, but also because communication (especially in its linguistic meaning) is itself one of the central representations of intelligence. It is not by chance that the form through which AI has gained a foothold in the contemporary world is that of speaking machines, such as the so-called 'voice assistants' embedded in smartphones and smart speakers. Voice is traditionally considered to be what makes humans human, so our imagination projects onto a machine endowed with voice the other characteristics of humanity as well, intelligence in primis (Dolar, 2006). From the very beginnings of AI, coming immediately after computer science, natural language has been considered the paradigm inspiring the attempt to produce an intelligent machine (Bianchini, 2007). At the same time, intelligent machines have been imagined as possessing a voice since the beginning of technological modernity, both in the scientific milieu and in popular representations, from novels to cinema (from 2001 A Space Odyssey or Star Wars to Her).Given such premises, Simone Natale suggests that a better way to investigate AI is to inscribe it within the genealogy of modern communication media, adopting the analytic and critical tools of media studies, cultural studies and media history. He does not explicitly refer to media archaeology as an influence, but readers familiar with the work of such authors as Erkki Huthamo and Jussi Parikka (2011) will definitely find connections. The central assumption is that AI is a social and historical phenomenon constructed through intertwining knowledge, imaginaries, narratives, desires and material operations. This is something scholars in media studies and science and technology studies have long argued, but what Natale adds to the frame is an anthropological consideration that the assemblage is kept together by the human's liability to be deceived. In a very original and brilliant way, he finds in the concept of 'banal deception' a vital driving force of the technological development of the last century.Natale's core thesis is that deception is not just a side effect or a possible malicious use of AI, but a constitutive element of modern media. All media, in fact, draw on deceitful effects: the cinema gives the illusion of moving images through the fast suc...