Although no single term or even set of terms exists from the long medieval period to refer to objects that we might recognize as artificial intelligence, numerous examples, from artificial servants to elaborate optical devices, exist on a spectrum from augmented human perception to sentient machines. Because natural phenomena and causation were understood different from now, the possible paths to artificial intelligence included astral science, natural philosophy, demons, and natural magic. Yet although there were believed to be a number of ways to create artificial intelligence in this period, the uses to which it was put are fairly limited. Throughout this era, artificial intelligence appears in imaginative contexts to gain, consolidate, and exercise power. This sometimes took the form of maintaining class and gender hierarchies, but could also be used for military or political dominance, or to gain knowledge of the future that could be used to a person’s advantage.
...MoreBook Stephen Cave; Kanta Dihal; Sarah Dillon (2020) AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines.
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