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Artificial Intelligence as paintbrush, garden, canvas and companion : Making sense of AI imagination metaphors| title | Artificial Intelligence as paintbrush, garden, canvas and companion : Making sense of AI imagination metaphors |
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| start_date | 2026/04/13 |
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| schedule | 10h-12h |
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| online | no |
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| location_info | salle de réunion, Pavillon Jardin & en ligne |
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| summary | Some have argued that imagination is the one human trait that AI will never have. Others argue that AI is already capable of imagining. A number of metaphors are bandied about: AI is like a paintbrush, a tool, which (merely) extends the human imagination. Or AI is a garden, something over which we have some (but not complete) control. Or AI is a canvas, a medium, which receives and displays human imagination. Or AI is a companion, an assistant, which obeys or collaborates. In this talk, I begin by putting all the options on the table, to find the senses in which AI can and cannot imagine. While we can identify some surprising and interesting avenues for further research, this exercise nevertheless seems to leave an important question unanswered, namely, whether AI can "really" imagine. I argue that the reason this question remains is because imagination is a "dual character" concept, that is, it has both descriptive and evaluative elements, and worse, it is an "essentially contested" concept, meaning that the evaluative nature reflects underlying values that continue to change, and those changes have consequences for the descriptive elements of the concept. This means that it is unlikely we will ever agree about what "the" imagination is, and therefore whether AI has one. |
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| responsibles | Dokic, Arcangeli |
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Workflow history| from state (1) | to state | comment | date |
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| submitted | published | | 2026/04/07 13:43 UTC |
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