Review of “Exploring metaphors of AI: visualisations, narratives and perception”
📄 Article Content
IceMing & Digit / Stochastic Parrots at Work / Licenced by CC-BY 4.0
Better Images of AI and We and AI have been exploring the role of visual and narrative metaphors in shaping our understanding of AI. As part of this we invited some researchers who have been conducting different types of research into the topic, to shed light on the ways metaphors can contribute to hype specifically. This informs a project we are conducting on building an annotated AI metaphor database.
Introduction
From 10th to 12th September 2025, Barcelona hosted an academic gathering at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya: the first Hype Studies Conference, titled “(Don’t) Believe the Hype!?” Organised by a transnational, collective research group of scholars and practitioners, the conference drew together researchers, activists, artists, journalists, and technology professionals to examine hype as a significant force shaping contemporary society.
Hype Studies is an emerging academic field that analyses how and why excessive expectations form around technologies, ideas, or phenomena, and what effects those expectations have on society, culture, economics, and policy. As the playful