4 May 2022
The “Banal” Deception of Digital Presence – Projecting Life onto Media and Machines, from Turing to Siri

Simone Natale

28 April 2023
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
The Genealogy of Images. From Focillon and Warburg to Computer Vision and Contemporary Semiotics

Maria Giulia Dondero

3 March 2023
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
Who is here when I am here?

Michel Rehilac

17 February 2023
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108
Another Reality

Immersive Solutions from Training to Business.

16 February 2023
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104
About presence: perception, technologies, immersive environments.

Enrico Pitozzi

3 February 2023
2022/23 Practices
108
Mixed reality for doctors. The ARTICOR software for cardiovascular interventions
1 February 2023
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
At the roots of digital: in praise of a rhizomatic archaeology

Francesco Casetti

20 January 2023
2022/23 Practices
108
Active Learning of Industrial Chemical Processes By Virtual Immersive Laboratory: The Eye4edu Project

Carlo Pirola

19 January 2023
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
Sensing Cinema Heritage. For a multisensory approach to film heritage

Andrea Mariani, Eleonora Roaro

10 January 2023
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
Archaeology of immersion

Barbara Le Maître, Natacha Pernac, Jennifer Verraes

16 December 2022
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108
What XR can do for a Museum

Luca Roncella

3 November 2022
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
But have we ever (been) immersed? Atmospherological cues

Tonino Griffero

27 October 2022
2022/23 Multisensoriality
104
How Images Appear – Ontological and Epistemological Concerns

Krešimir Purgar

31 May 2022
2022 Presence
98
Virtual reality and pictorial seeing
19 May 2022
2022 Presence
98
Osaka ’70 VR Experience

Valentina Temporin, John Volpato

10 March 2022
2022 Presence
98
Towards a Science of Complex Experiences

Alice Chirico

17 February 2022
2022 Presence
98
From screen to body

Margherita Landi, Agnese Lanza

31 May 2021
2021 Interactivity
97
Experiencing with images

Giovanni Matteucci

24 May 2021
2021 Interactivity
97
Scaffolding the Interactive Imagination

Janet Murray

20 May 2021
2021 Interactivity
97
Archaeology of Interactivity: Materiality of Cinematic devices and Physiology of Human – Machine Interaction

Simone Venturini

10 May 2021
2021 Interactivity
97
Embodied simulation and experimental aesthetics

Vittorio Gallese

research: Seminar

2022 Presence
98

The “Banal” Deception of Digital Presence – Projecting Life onto Media and Machines, from Turing to Siri

Simone Natale

The companion chatbot Replika is a commercial app that offers users the experience of entertaining conversation with an artificial avatar powered by software. Although most if not all users know perfectly well that Replika is not a person and is incapable of empathy and emotion, many nonetheless enjoy what they feel as the companionship of the chatbot. Their engagement with Replika evokes an apparent contradiction characterising people’s interaction with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies: how can one be perfectly aware that an effect of presence and liveness is just a simulation, and still be drawn to it? The talk addresses this question by considering elements of the history of AI, from the Turing Test through the first chatbot ELIZA to contemporary voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri. Presenting materials from my latest monograph, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test(Oxford University Press, 2021), I will argue that behind effects of digital presence lie an ordinary, “banal” deception that allows users to feel a sense of closeness and intimacy with people who are not physically present or do not even exist.

Biography

Simone Natale, University of Turin

Simone Natale is Associate Professor at the University of Turin, Italy and Visiting Fellow at Loughborough University, UK, where he taught and researched from 2015 to 2020. He is the author of two monographs, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test (Oxford University Press, 2021) and Supernatural Entertainments: Victorian Spiritualism and the Rise of Modern Media Culture (Penn State University Press, 2016), and of articles published in journals including New Media and Society, Communication Theory, the Journal of Communication, and Convergence. His research has been funded by leading international institutions including the Humboldt Foundation and the DAAD in Germany, AHRC and ESRC in the UK, and Columbia University’s Italian Academy in the US. Since 2019, he is Assistant Editor of Media, Culture & Society.

research: seminar

The “Banal” Deception of Digital Presence – Projecting Life onto Media and Machines, from Turing to Siri

Simone Natale

The companion chatbot Replika is a commercial app that offers users the experience of entertaining conversation with an artificial avatar powered by software. Although most if not all users know perfectly well that Replika is not a person and is incapable of empathy and emotion, many nonetheless enjoy what they feel as the companionship of the chatbot. Their engagement with Replika evokes an apparent contradiction characterising people’s interaction with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other digital technologies: how can one be perfectly aware that an effect of presence and liveness is just a simulation, and still be drawn to it? The talk addresses this question by considering elements of the history of AI, from the Turing Test through the first chatbot ELIZA to contemporary voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri. Presenting materials from my latest monograph, Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test(Oxford University Press, 2021), I will argue that behind effects of digital presence lie an ordinary, “banal” deception that allows users to feel a sense of closeness and intimacy with people who are not physically present or do not even exist.

4 May 2022
17:00
19:00

Dipartimento di Filosofia

Sala Martinetti

Via Festa del Perdono, 7

The “Banal” Deception of Digital Presence – Projecting Life onto Media and Machines, from Turing to Siri
Simone Natale
Dipartimento di Filosofia
Sala Martinetti
Via Festa del Perdono, 7
20220504
17:00
19:00