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Cited by 264

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 62 of the 62 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence

Open access
Natale, Simone, Ballatore, Andrea·2020·Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
DOI 10.1177/1354856517715164
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Abstract

This article discusses the role of technological myths in the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies from 1950s to the early 1970s. It shows how the rise of AI was accompanied by the construction of a powerful cultural myth: The creation of a thinking machine, which would be able to perfectly simulate the cognitive faculties of the human mind. Based on a content analysis of articles on AI published in two magazines, the Scientific American and the New Scientist, which were aimed at a broad readership of scientists, engineers and technologists, three dominant patterns in the construction of the AI myth are identified: (1) the recurrence of analogies and discursive shifts, by which ideas and concepts from other fields were employed to describe the functioning of AI technologies; (2) a rhetorical use of the future, imagining that present shortcomings and limitations will shortly be overcome and (3) the relevance of controversies around the claims of AI, which we argue should be considered as an integral part of the discourse surrounding the AI myth.

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Cites

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Citations

Cites

Show all 62 references

Research works printed but not linked: 36

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Cited by

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Metadata

Authors
Natale, S., & Ballatore, A.
Venue
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2017-06-20
Volume
26
Issue
1
Pages
3-18
ISSN
  • 1354-8565 (ISSN-L)
  • 1748-7382
DOI
10.1177/1354856517715164
OpenAlex
W2623152824
Cited by
264
References
62
FWCI
25.91
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
green
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1177/1354856517715164
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Natale, S., & Ballatore, A. (2020). Imagining the thinking machine: Technological myths and the rise of artificial intelligence. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517715164

Data sources

Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.