Next Friday, March 6, the seminar “AI, from imaginaries to controversies” will take place, taught in English by researcher Alberto Romelle from the Sorbonne Nouvelle University of Paris.  

The seminar will take place in the usual classroom of the THECO Permanent Seminar, Room 17.2.47 at Ortega y Gasset building, from 10:00 to 12:00h.

The session is held within the framework of the THECO group, the Speak4Nature research project and in coordination with the Institute of Contemporary Studies, Politics and Governance.

Link to the online session: meet.jit.si/THECO_S4N

Abstract

This lecture presents a series of recent studies on the media representations of artificial intelligence, moving from the analysis of sociotechnical imaginaries to the mapping of emerging controversies. Drawing on digital hermeneutics and the concept of digital habitus, I argue that AI imaginaries are neither superficial nor merely decorative narratives surrounding technological development. They actively participate in shaping expectations, investments, regulatory frameworks, and everyday practices.

His research examines different media layers of AI representation: stock images circulating in science communication, journalistic and institutional discourses, and vernacular productions such as memes. Through a quali-quantitative analysis of visual and textual corpora, his study showed how AI is recurrently framed through stabilized visual grammars and narrative tropes that naturalize its autonomy, neutrality, or inevitability. At the same time, memes and online comment cultures introduce forms of vernacular criticism that destabilize these dominant imaginaries.

Rather than treating imaginaries as cohesive and pacified cultural formations, he propose to understand them as contested arenas. Recent developments in generative AI have intensified conflicts around labor, creativity, authorship, and epistemic authority. These tensions often exceed an agonistic model of democratic disagreement and take on antagonistic forms, marked by polarization and moralization. By tracing the passage from imaginaries to controversies, the lecture contributes to a politicized understanding of AI representations and suggests methodological tools for studying AI as what I call a “super-controversy” within contemporary media environments.

Bio:

Alberto Romele is Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris, where he serves as Vice-Dean of the Institute of Communication and Media and coordinates the Observatory of AI in Arts and Media. Trained as a philosopher of technology, his research focuses on digital hermeneutics and the sociotechnical imaginaries of artificial intelligence. He has published extensively in international journals and is the author of two books on digital hermeneutics and AI imaginaries.