AI Fables

Can fables help us to think more clearly about the risks posed by artificial intelligence?

• What are some concepts that help people to understand these risks?

• Can these concepts be communicated in compelling fables?

Stories can help us to understand the world. They can communicate ideas. They can make the abstract concrete, portraying how an idea could play out in the world and what these implications might feel like. A story can help us to dwell in an idea for a time, developing not just an understanding of it but an instinct for what it means. And fables, in particular, can centre a lesson, building it into the plot or the world of the piece.

AI Fables provided a space for the creation of tales that communicated how to think about the risks posed by AI. When it comes to AI, there are many tools that might help us to think more clearly. Perhaps instrumental convergence, or scheming, or sharp left turns. Perhaps ways of thinking and epistemic principles that can mediate our reflections on AI. Many such ideas naturally fit a fable's shape.

Some of the tales produced in the event have found their way into the world, and some may yet do so. Others will not but have shaped the understandings of the writers involved.