Technology as (Dis-)Enchantment. AlphaGo and the Meaning-Making of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

As a social phenomenon, artificial intelligence (AI) is not just technically but also culturally constructed. This article investigates the meaning-making of AI in the case of AlphaGo by employing and refining cultural sociological narrative analysis. Building on Smith’s structural model of genre, whose horizontal axis reflects varying degrees of (dis-)enchantment, I propose an extended model of narrative genre, adding a vertical axis on the theoretical basis of Durkheim’s distinction between pure and impure sacred, to account for the empirical bifurcation between utopian and dystopian AI narratives. While critical approaches to AI, prevalent in sociology, tend to offer disenchanted narratives, my cultural sociological approach allows for the construction of a meta-narrative, which is able to capture not only enchantment as well as disenchantment but also purification and impurification as empirical processes that accompany the emergence and consolidation of new technologies. This approach is exemplified by a case study of AlphaGo, a Go-playing program utilizing machine learning and neural networks, which gained global prominence and cultural significance after beating a human grandmaster in 2016. Drawing on publicly available online data, this article investigates the discourses surrounding AlphaGo, focusing on its cultural construction through storytelling and genre. I not only show how characters and events were emplotted in different stories, which were in turn embedded in broader narratives about technological progress and AI, but also explain how the development of the main storyline was driven by in-game performances, audience expectations and collective representations. The article demonstrates the feasibility of a cultural sociology of AI and the usefulness of my extended model of narrative genre, which is not only applicable to AI discourses but other domains as well.

Interfacing AlphaGo: Embodied play, object agency, and algorithmic drama

“…A further mark of hesitation (or at least of ceding the initiative) appears to be that Lee, after having played 'move 36' (but before 'move 37' was being played), left the game room for a smoke on one of the Hotel terraces specifically being reserved at the Four Seasons for this purpose (Kohs, 2017). This course of events is not only contrary to Mennick's (2016), Binder's (2021 and Curran et al's (2020) accounts, but also to the live commentary by Garlock and Redmond (Google DeepMind, 2016, 01:19:37-). The latter misinterpreted, if inadvertently, Lee's empty chair as the telling result of AlphaGo's forceful 'surprise move' (ibid.…”

“…The same argument applies to 'human/machine interfacing' (Lipp & Dickel, 2022), insofar as its relational genealogy, for it to become operative (e.g., in a technology demonstration), needs to be locally performed and practically sustained (e.g., as an exhibition match). And the argument a fortiori applies to narrative interpretations in terms of 'social drama' (Binder, 2021), 'enchanted determinism' (Campolo & Crawford, 2020) or 'technological myths' (Natale & Ballatore, 2020). 17 Drawing upon a reflexive video analysis, this article explicated skillfully embodied play as a pivotal interfacing practice, enabling the AlphaGo technology demonstration, while being reshaped by its expert commentary and split-screen livestreaming, and thereby contributing to framing subsequent media discourse (if not narrative scholarly interpretation).…”

“…For instance, the exhibition match has been invoked as an exemplary case to narrate and reflect upon technological change, as a historical process and/or discursive pattern, rather than to pause on the event's very occurrence-that is, its staged character and situated performance. Hence, and instead of being described as a technology demonstration, the AlphaGo show has been interpreted as part of a broader 'social drama' (Binder, 2021), 'enchanted determinism' (Campolo & Crawford, 2020), or 'shifting narratives' (Bory, 2019). Often interpretations take a comparative form.…”

“…In early March 2016, the exhibition match was livestreamed from Seoul and reportedly watched by over 200 million viewers across Asia, eventuating in 35,000 media reports by March 2017 (Hassabis, 2017). By now, media attention has been complemented with extensive (post-)game commentary, computer Go expertise, and contrasting media analysis, be it by outside observers (e.g., Binder, 2021;Bory, 2019;Curran et al, 2020;Goode, 2018;Mair et al, 2020), the initial commentators (Redmond & Garlock, 2020a, 2020b, or the AlphaGo research team (Silver et al, 2016(Silver et al, , 2017. However, despite or precisely because of all the media frenzy and scholarly attention, the exhibition match as a particular kind of technology demonstration-in short, the 'AlphaGo show' (Redmond & Garlock, 2020a, p. 47)-has not received much scrutiny in science and technology studies (STS).…”

“…Its documentary movie, commissioned by DeepMind , offers many backstage glimpses of how PR staff not only appeared to be busy with ‘hiding the computer’, but also with ‘orchestrating the event’, not to mention the continuous dramatization of the event in terms of its anthropological implications (Kohs, 2017). For a recent ‘meta-narrative’, see Binder (2022).…”