Antiboxology: agent design in cultural context

Abstract

behavior integration, postmodernism, schizophrenia, cultural studies of science, critical technical practice Artificial Intelligence (AI), the design of technology with attributes that we traditionally associate with living beings, generally follows the broader scientific tradition of focusing on technical problems and their solutions within a relatively constrained framework. The cultural studies of science, on the other hand, insists that scientific work should be understood as it springs from and influences other cultural phenomena, including the background of metaphors and assumptions that influence the way scientists do their work. In this thesis, I explore the possibilities for AI and the cultural studies of science to engage in a mutually beneficial alliance, by studying AI as a culturally situated activity and by using results of that study to generate novel technology. Specifically, I focus on the design of autonomousagents, programs which