AlphaGo’s Deep Play : Technological Breakthrough as Social Drama
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Chapter of a book |
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| Description | The chapter reworks Victor Turner’s concept of “social drama” in order to analyze the case of AlphaGo as a technological breakthrough in AI research. Social dramas stemming from technological breakthroughs are triggered by publicized violations of cognitive expectations that raise fundamental questions in their field, e.g. regarding the nature of intelligence and the status of AI in the social world. Diverging opinions about the meaning of the cognitive breach result in a social crisis, which is addressed by performances of human and non-human actors. This chapter sketches the dramatic unfolding and resolution of the social drama, analyzing the games of AlphaGo and the discourses surrounding them. I conclude with some reflections on creativity and intuition as well as on the cultural significance of AlphaGo’s victory. |
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