AI Narrative Breakdown. A Critical Assessment of Power and Promise

Abstract: This article sets off for an exploration of the still evolving discourse surrounding AI in the wake of the release of ChatGPT. It scrutinizes the pervasive narratives that are shaping the societal engagement with AI, spotlighting key themes such as agency and decision-making, autonomy, truthfulness, knowledge processing, prediction, general purpose, neutrality and objectivity, apolitical optimization, sustainability game-changer, democratization, mass unemployment, and the dualistic portrayal of AI as either a harbinger of societal utopia or dystopia. Those narratives are analysed critically based on insights from critical computer science, critical data and algorithm studies, from STS, data protection theory, as well as from the philosophy of mind and semiotics. To properly analyse the narratives presented, the article first delves into a historical and technical contextualisation of the AI discourse itself. The article then introduces the notion of "Zeitgeist AI" to critique the imprecise and misleading application of the term "AI" across various societal sectors. Then, by discussing common narratives with nuance, the article contextualises and challenges often assumed socio-political implications of AI, uncovering in detail and with examples the inherent political, power infused and value-laden decisions within all AI applications. Concluding with a call for a more grounded engagement with AI, the article carves out acute problems ignored by the narratives discussed and proposes new narratives recognizing AI as a human-directed tool necessarily subject to societal governance.