Blue Brains: Aesthetic Ideologies and the Formation of Knowledge Between Religion and Science

Grieser, Alexandra

doi:10.1515/9783110461015-011

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…The alleged 'human' has always evolved along with its projects and its attempts at purifications, products created in conjunction with the technological. Thus, the distinction for some appears to be one of more ideology rather than ontology, and we have noted how aesthetics can come from ideology in order to target 'affective attitude' (Grieser 2017).…”

Section: Ai Post-humanism and Post-secularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse

Singler

2020

Religions

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Through a consideration of examples of the AI Creation Meme, a remix of Michelangelo’s Creazione di Adamo featuring a human hand and a machine hand nearly touching, fingertip to fingertip, this article will tackle the religious continuities and resonances that still emerge in AI discourse in an allegedly ‘secular age’. The AI Creation Meme, as a highly visible cultural artefact appearing in a variety of forms and locations, will be analyzed and discussed for its religious, apocalyptic, and post-humanist narratives, along with reference to earlier work on the New Visibility of Religion—specifically, Alexander Darius Ornella’s consideration of the New Visibility of Religion and religious imagery of the 2006 film, Children of Men. Work that outlines the aspects of critical post-humanism, speculative post-humanism, and transhumanism in relation to the contemporary post-secular age will also be addressed to expand on the implicit apocalyptic messages of the AI Creation Meme. Such a consideration of repeating and remixed imagery will add to the scholarly conversation around AI narratives and the entanglements of religion and technology in our imaginaries of the future.

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Section: Ai Post-humanism and Post-secularitymentioning

confidence: 99%

The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse

Singler

2020

Religions

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“…Anthropomorphic robots and androids from nondescript futuristic settings abound, often with a focus on their heads (and computational brains), eyes (as cameras, lenses, sensors) and arms, hands, fingers (interacting with screens or other interfaces). The analogy between human brains and thinking machines has a long history in artificial intelligence imaginaries (Gere 2004) and in neuroscientific aesthetics (Grieser 2017), and even the yearning touch between a human and a robotic hand has been identified as a near-religious industry trope (Singler 2020). On the more mundane side of the human-machine coordination register, the human body takes center stage: SenseTime's Sense-Foundry smart city products are illustrated by the hand of a man in business suit that extends to touch and manipulate the hologram of a skyline; Yitu's Healthcare Total Solution platform is summarized by a Caucasian medical professional looking intently at some circular data patterns floating in the air; on most of the websites we analyzed, photos of professionals interacting with more or less stylized technologies emphasize this need to reach out and engage [Fig.…”

Section: Human-machine Coordinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry

de Seta,

Shchetvina

2023

AI & Soc

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Machine vision is one of the main applications of artificial intelligence. In China, the machine vision industry makes up more than a third of the national AI market, and technologies like face recognition, object tracking and automated driving play a central role in surveillance systems and social governance projects relying on the large-scale collection and processing of sensor data. Like other novel articulations of technology and society, machine vision is defined, developed and explained by different actors through the work of imagination. In this article, we draw on the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries to understand how Chinese companies represent machine vision. Through a qualitative multimodal analysis of the corporate websites of leading industry players, we identify a cohesive sociotechnical imaginary of machine vision, and explain how four distinct visual registers contribute to its articulation. These four registers, which we call computational abstraction, human–machine coordination, smooth everyday, and dashboard realism, allow Chinese tech companies to articulate their global ambitions and competitiveness through narrow and opaque representations of machine vision technologies.

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“…As I will demonstrate, Clark's argument regarding the unifying character of PP relies on rhetorical strategies as well as on an aesthetic validation of pattern as a figure of connection and mutual fit. The notion of figures of knowledge makes it possible to conjointly address these rhetorical and aesthetic dimensions by using insights from the rhetoric of science (Fahnestock, 1999;Gross, 1990Gross, & 2006 and the aesthetics of knowledge (Grieser, 2017;Borelli and Grieser, 2017). I fully share the conviction of many scholars in science and technology studies and beyond that knowledge always is produced in complex material-semiotic ecologies that involve language and textuality as well as various biological, social and technological materialities (Rickert, 2013;Pickering, 2017).…”

Section: Pattern As a Figure Of Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Binding Brain, Body and World: Pattern as a Figure of Knowledge in Andy Clark’s Work on Predictive Processing

Besser

2022

Poroi

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Over the past two decades, the predictive processing (PP) framework has emerged as an immensely influential research paradigm in cognitive science and beyond. This article analyzes the critical role that the notion of ‘pattern’ plays in the agenda-setting work of philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark on PP and the project to develop the framework into a unified theory of the embodied mind. It argues that pattern contributes to this project not primarily as a full-fledged concept but rather as a figure of knowledge that shapes PP theory at a rhetorical and aesthetic level. The article offers a definition of figures ofknowledge as a critical concept and suggest to apply it more broadly to the study of pattern as “keyword of our times” (Franco Moretti).

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Blue Brains: Aesthetic Ideologies and the Formation of Knowledge Between Religion and Science

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Cited by 8 publications

References 8 publications

The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse

The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse

Imagining machine vision: Four visual registers from the Chinese AI industry

Binding Brain, Body and World: Pattern as a Figure of Knowledge in Andy Clark’s Work on Predictive Processing

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