Technological failures, controversies and the myth of AI

Since the emergence of the notion of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 1950s, the dream of developing a thinking machine has been the focus of a series of failures and revivals. While some computer scientists, scientists, and philosophers have endeavored to prove the impossibility of an AI equivalent or superior to the human mind, others have continued to renew their hopes of achieving it. This chapter sets out to investigate the problem of technological failure in the case of AI, analysing the way in which the controversy has continued to fuel itself over several decades. This debate can be considered functional to the maintenance and renewal of the myth of the thinking machine, which has exerted a constant influence on intellectual debate and popular culture from the late 1950s to the present day. The controversy can therefore be considered not as an obstacle but as a functional element in the construction of the technological myth of AI.