COMPETING FANTASIES OF HUMANS AND MACHINES: SYMBOLIC CONVERGENCES IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EVENTS COVERAGE _______________________________________ A Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri-Columbia _______________________________________________________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts _____________________________________________________ by HAYDEN ROBERT LEWIS Dr. Margaret Duffy, Thesis Supervisor DECEMBER 2017 © Copyright by Hayden Lewis 2017 All Rights Reserved The undersigned, appointed by the dean of the Graduate School, have examined the thesis entitled COMPETING FANTASIES OF HUMANS AND MACHINES presented by Hayden Lewis, a candidate for the degree of master of arts, and hereby certify that, in their opinion, it is worthy of acceptance. Professor Margaret Duffy Professor Jon Stemmle Professor Sara Shipley-Hiles Professor Sandy Rikoon DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Anna and Robert, without whom none of this would have been possible, and due to whom I’ll always remember not to take myself too seriously — except when you’re trying to fool the academy into awarding you a master’s degree. Running Head: COMPETING FANTASIES OF HUMANS AND MACHINES Lewis ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Due to a general inclination to take inspiration from small and unexpected sources, the sheer scope of the acknowledgements I’d like to recognize as having influenced this thesis far surpasses what would fit on a standard acknowledgements page. So while I’m not normally one to stick to conventions, I’m obliged to keep this page concise and somewhat regrettably vanilla. In short, the completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the undying support of my committee, professors, and everyone else who helped me along this journey. I am particularly indebted to my advisor and thesis chair, Margaret Duffy, whose guidance in steering my thesis focus from the Anthropocene toward artificial intelligence was doubtless a wise reorientation for a nerdy, bookish, existentially obsessed graduate student. I also cannot express enough appreciation for the help of Jon Stemmle who, outside of serving as a premier source of practical and professional advising, gave me the opportunity to help the strategic communications department with all things technical during my time in grad school, effectively opening the door for my first full-time job specializing in artificial intelligence-based marketing technology. Lewis iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vi Preface................................................................................................................................ vii Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 2: Literature review ............................................................................................... 3 Technological determinism ............................................................................................. 3 Media as technologically determinant ............................................................................. 5 Historical manifestations of the man versus machine concept ........................................ 9 Modern manifestations of the man versus machine concept ......................................... 10 Artificial intelligence ..................................................................................................... 13 Theoretical framework .................................................................................................. 17 Rhetorical criticism........................................................................................................ 19 Symbolic convergence theory and fantasy theme analysis ........................................... 20 Chapter 3: Methods ........................................................................................................... 24 Research Questions........................................................................................................ 25 Research plan ................................................................................................................. 25 Process ........................................................................................................................... 27 RQ1: ........................................................................................................................... 29 RQ2: ........................................................................................................................... 33 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 38 Limitations ..................................................................................................................... 41 Lewis iv Directions for Future Research ...................................................................................... 41 References ......................................................................................................................... 43 Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 51 Memos: IBM Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov coverage ................................................ 51 The Wall Street Journal — “IBM's winning 'Deep Blue' is still product of primates” .................................................................................................................................... 51 The Washington Post — “No-Brainer; In the Kasparov-Deep Blue chess battle, only the human has his wits about him”............................................................................. 53 The Washington Post — “For chess world, a Deep Blue Sunday”............................ 53 The New York Times — “Mind over matter” .......................................................... 56 The New York Times — “The contest is toe-to-toe and pawn-to-pawn” ................. 56 The New York Times — “Fighting on down to the very last volt” .......................... 59 The New York Times — “Deep Blue escapes with draw to force decisive last game” .................................................................................................................................... 61 The New York Times — “Computers vs Humans: Clashing symbols” ................... 63 The New York Times — “Checkmate, Mr. Blue?” .................................................. 63 The New York Times — “Kasparov becomes human” ............................................ 63 The New York Times — “Swift and slashing, computer topples Kasparov” ........... 65 The New York Times — “Inscrutable conqueror” ................................................... 68 The New York Times — “How one champion is chewed up into small bits by another” ...................................................................................................................... 72 The New York Times — “A grandmaster sat at the chessboard, but the real opponent was Gates” .................................................................................................................. 74 Lewis v Memos: IBM Watson vs. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter coverage .............................. 78 The Wall Street Journal — “When computers beat humans on Jeopardy!” .............. 78 The Washington Post — On 'Jeopardy!,' rise of the machine: Computer competitor rakes in ratings ........................................................................................................... 78 The New York Times — “Computer wins on ‘Jeopardy!’: Trivial, it’s not” ............ 80 The New York Times — “Daisy, daisy”.................................................................... 83 Memos: Google DeepMind AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol coverage ..................................... 84 The Wall Street Journal — “In machine matchup, Go champ gets a win” ................ 84 The Wall Street Journal — “Go champion bows to Google software” ..................... 86 The Washington Post — “How you beat one of the best Go players in the world? Use Google” ...................................................................................................................... 88 The New York Times — “Man playing a computer finally wins a game of Go” ..... 90 The New York Times — “A computer wins by learning like humans” .................... 93 The New York Times — “Machine bests man in Go series, winning 4” .................. 93 Articles: ......................................................................................................................... 96 IBM Deep Blue vs. Garry Kasparov .......................................................................... 96 IBM Watson vs. Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter coverage ....................................... 142 Lee Sedol vs. AlphaGo coverage ............................................................................. 153 Lewis vi COMPETING FANTASIES OF HUMANS AND MACHINES HAYDEN LEWIS Dr. Margaret Duffy, Thesis Supervisor Abstract This