Exploring the Socio-Technical Imaginary of Artificial General Intelligence in The Bard Large Language Model: A Narrative Analysis on Perspectives and Dialectics

Abstract

AbstractThe launch of ChatGPT, a large language model, in November 2022 has generated significant interest and rapid adoption, amassing 1 million users within its first five days and reaching 100 million users in just two months. This has ignited widespread public discussion and debate on the implications of artificial intelligence, drawing attention to the more advanced and controversial concept of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) exhibiting a broad range of cognitive abilities, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and adapting to new and unfamiliar situations, with potential applications across various fields in society, including healthcare, transportation, and environmental management. This study investigates the presence of a socio-technical imaginary surrounding AGI in the discourse of the Bard large language model through an in-depth interview. Using narrative analysis, we identified dialectics of optimism, pessimism, epochalism, and inevitability in an interview with Bard. Our findings reveal a greater inclination towards optimism (73 segments, 4182 words) than pessimism (56 segments, 3774 words), along with the presence of both inevitability (40 segments, 1458 words) and epochalism (31 segments, 1161 words). These results suggest that Bard reflects the diverse perspectives, beliefs, biases, and narratives on AGI present in the data it was trained on. Optimistic perspectives were identified concerning the potential impact of AGI on numerous aspects of human life, such as education, arts and culture, creativity, relationships, family, economy, governance, environment, and the exploration of the universe. Conversely, pessimistic viewpoints were observed in relation to AGI's potential effects on creativity, relationships, family, unemployment, political stability, interstate conflict, the development of superhumans, media manipulation, intelligence explosion, simulated reality, and a dystopian future. Additionally, a comprehensive examination was conducted on four major themes derived from a qualitative analysis of the interview with Bard. These themes, which include the relationship between humans and AGI, the notion of AGI acquiring a physical body, AGI simulating a universe, and the responsible use of AGI for good, provide valuable insights into the socio-technical imaginary encompassing AGI. The identified concepts have been recognized in existing literature, further illustrating that the socio-technical imaginary surrounding AGI is captured by the LLM. However, the study is limited by the scope of the interview and the organic responses generated by Bard during its testing phase. Further research could explore how the model's representation of AGI discourse may change with additional training and fine-tuning, potentially impacting its utility for understanding the socio-technical imaginary around AGI.