Kanta Dihal

Dr Kanta Dihal is Lecturer in Science Communication at Imperial College London, where she is Course Director of the MSc in Science Communication, and Associate Fellow of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on science narratives, particularly science fiction, and how they shape public perceptions and scientific development. She is co-editor of the books AI Narratives (2020) and Imagining AI (2023) and has advised international governmental organizations and NGOs. She holds a DPhil from the University of Oxford on the communication of quantum physics.

Talk Title

Imagining AI: Intercultural attitudes toward intelligent machines

Talk Summary

People have been imagining intelligent machines for millennia, in ways that vary greatly across cultures. While themes such as embodiment seem to be widespread across the world, ideas of what constitutes an intelligent machine and what its place in society should be are strongly dependent on cultural, national, and other contexts. Yet as artificial intelligence begins to fulfil its potential as a technology, spreading across the globe from its origins in 1950s America, many of these perspectives are marginalised. These stories, films, and visions matter: they are entangled in broader cultural attitudes and approaches to AI, reflecting or inspiring, embedding or disputing them. Having studied the attitudes towards AI around the world in a five-year project with partners on seven continents, I will be highlighting some of the most notable differences in cultural approaches to AI, how they influence public perceptions, and what they can tell us now that intelligent machines seem to be becoming a technological reality.

This is event is a part of “Responsible AI Lecture” series co-organised by I-X and Dyson School of Design Engineering, and chaired by Dr Celine Mougenot.