Critical Perspectives on Communicative AI Andreas Hepp, Nick Couldry, Göran Bolin, Julia Velkova, Benedetta Brevini University of Bremen, Germany
Current media coverage surrounding ChatGPT, LaMDA, and Luminous has brought questions about the automation of communication into the mainstream. Artificially intelligent media are no longer merely mediating instances of communication but are themselves becoming communicative participants. This has generated broad public discussion about these systems and others and the challenges they bring to domains such as education, public discourse, and journalistic production. Much of this new “AI hype” revolves around the question of whether such systems will soon “replace” humans as workers in these various domains, whether they will develop “super intelligence” and as a result challenge or even marginalize the human species. With this panel, we would like to give this discussion a new twist by asking what a critical perspective on communicative AI should look like. If these systems of “automated media” are not about intelligence, but about communication, what should a critical approach to them consider? Raising this question, we want to present five key critical perspectives on communicative AI. The first paper develops a critical perspective on the visions of pioneer communities. It poses the question of whether today's pioneering communities ultimately reproduce basic patterns of the old Californian Ideology in relation to communicative AI. A second paper focuses on the perspective of data colonialism. In essence, it is about showing that a critical engagement with communicative AI means addressing the question of the extent to which systems of automated communication are linked to existing data infrastructures and nexus models of exploitation. The third paper highlights the perspective of economic value production. Since more and more social situations include human-machine communication, more social interactions become possible to monetize. This relates not only to commercial settings, but also in the public sector as it relates to the welfare state. The fourth paper focuses on a material perspective. At its core is the question of how Big Tech procures power for data centres to construct the emerging geography of cheap computational labour needed for communicative AI. The fifth paper deals with the perspective of an eco-political economy of communicative AI. Through this prism, the question of the ecological consequences of communicative AI can be addressed. By contrasting these five critical perspectives on communicative AI, we want to discuss what an overarching, critical approach to communicative AI might look like.
