Category: artifical intelligence
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Observing shifts in metaphors for AI: What changed and why it matters
In my previous two posts I have made the case for an AI metaphor observatory and surveyed the recent academic landscape of studies dealing with metaphors for AI in the sense of GenAI and LLMs. In this post, the third and last in my ‘trilogy’, I’ll attempt to review recent trends and shifts in metaphor…
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Parasocial Relationships: Problematic Practice or Public Promise?
This year’s Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year is “parasocial”—spurred on by growing concerns over our love affair with AI chatbots. ••• This is a quick guest post/repost by Andrew Maynard. Andrew first published it on his Substack “The Future of Being Human” on 19 November, 2025. I read it while waiting for the dentist…
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Metaphors for AI: An overview of recent studies
In my previous post (part 1 of a trilogy) I called for an AI metaphor observatory to watch how people make sense (and sometimes nonsense) of generative artificial intelligence, or GenAI, through metaphors. I was pleased to see that many scholars are now collecting AI metaphors and studying them systematically and I provided a rough…
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Making the case for an AI metaphor observatory
Between 2023 and 2025 I have written various posts on GenAI, Large Language Models and metaphors: one where I went out hunting for metaphors; one where I had a chat with ChatGTP about metaphors for itself, metaphors that turned out to be rather magical; one focusing on food or culinary metaphors for AI; some dealing…
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Enshittification: A word for our times
On 9 October Jack Stilgoe posted a question on Bluesky: “Has Cory Doctorow done a piece on the enshittification of enshittification yet?” Ken Tindall replied: “The word enshittification has turned to shit but not through a process of enshittification.” This made me think. Is it true? Is there evidence for this? So, I started to…
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Participation at the core: AI, ELSI and community engagement
Alondra Nelson, a sociologist, STS scholar and expert on AI policy and ethics, recently published a letter in Science proposing that artificial intelligence (AI) should adopt the Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications (ELSI) framework from genomics, an approach designed to put social concerns at the heart of technology governance. Nelson argues that meaningful community engagement…
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Understanding computational hermeneutics: Making meaning between the past and the present
A large group of scholars led by Cody Kommers and Drew Hemment at the Alan Turing Institute recently published a paper on ‘computational hermeneutics’. They mention Hans-Georg Gadamer and Wilhelm Dilthey, two godfathers of hermeneutics, and talk about situated meaning, ambiguity and the plurality of meaning. How intriguing, I thought. The paper brought back memories…
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AI winter and AI bubble: Historical and metaphorical reflections
I have followed the emergence of recent developments in AI from the end of 2022 onwards, marked by the launch of OpenAI‘s AI chatbot ChatGPT. It’s now the middle of 2025 and a LOT has happened in this space. From being a niche and nerdy topic, AI has become a topic discussed across society. Recently, I…
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Vibes: From new age to new algorithms
The other day I was talking with a friend and moaning about writer’s block. My friend said: “You are into words and metaphors and stuff. What’s one small language puzzle that’s been nagging at you lately?” I blurted out: ‘vibes’. My friend replied: “Write about that then”. Lots of people have written about that word…
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The Making Science Public blog: An introduction
I have now said farewell several times to my old university blogging platform, but I haven’t really started building up a new readership here. Newbies to the blog might wonder what the old Making Science Public blog was all about; what topics it covered before venturing to press the subscribe button….. As a gentle introduction…
Making Science Public 