Imagining intelligent artefacts : Myths and a digital sublime regarding artificial intelligence in Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet

Sammanfattning: Artificial intelligence (AI) has over the past years become a hot topic for discussion in Sweden, as the technology presents exciting unique possibilities and challenges for the country and its citizens. Coverage of AI in Swedish news media presents imagined scenarios with both current and future AI that contribute to myths about how the technology is able to radically transform life, that spring out of a central digital sublime. Through a mixed-method study of 55 newspaper items about AI from Svenska Dagbladet from 2017 to 2018, the thesis studies what evident AI myths occur in coverage and how such discourses spring out digital sublime regarding AI. A total of four AI myths are found in news media coverage that revolve around existing and future intelligent computers, robots, machines and perceptions with them. Myths and hopes and concerns with them point to digital sublime regarding AI as a force of intelligent digitization that promises to empower a sublime citizen, economy, and welfare state. Emotional values with sublime AI are understood to reflect a general Swedish techno-optimism as digital artefacts have allowed Sweden to become prosperous.