Salem Elzway

A robot has never stolen a worker’s job! This may seem farfetched, however, no technology—yes, not even artificially intelligent robots—have agency or autonomy, let alone pecuniary motivations. My research into the history of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics is rooted in the reality that what technologies can and cannot do, and what their a/effects and meanings are, is an all too human rather than mechanical affair. To explore these issues, the project entails revisions of my dissertation into a book that will historicize how the development, diffusion, and deployment of artificially intelligent robots shaped the political and socioeconomic contours of the United States after World War II. The book will demonstrate that whatever impact AI had, has, or will have must be investigated and understood not in terms of what AI does, but in terms of who does what with AI, when, where, why, and how.