Time and Space for Robots and AI

The specific gap in the knowledge our videography seeks to address is the influence of robot/artificial intelligence (AI) technology representation on consumer-level timeflow. We study how robot/AI time-space imaginations are presented in news. We aim to use evocative power of moving images (Hietanen, Rokka, and Schouten 2014). The videography contributes to study of spatial and temporal perspectives in consumer research (Castilhos, Dolbec, and Veresiu 2017; Robinson 2018; Woermann and Rokka 2015). Woermann and Rokka (2015) identified the elements that shape consumer experiences on micro-level. Our study shows how temporality and spatiality are presented by technology chronotopes on meso-level. Drawing from literary theory, we examine discourse on robots and AI. Focusing on representation of time and space in news, we contextualize Bakhtin’s theory of chronotope (Bakhtin 1981). Chronotope is “the intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature” (84). We identify four main chronotopes in the narratives on these technologies: Fantasies of the Past, Present Timeflow, Human-Master Future, and Robot-Master Future. Fantasies of the Past are rich with references to historical mythology of machines and failed expectations of AI. Present Timeflow portrays various relationships that exist now – robots/AI born in research labs and science-fiction films move to our roads, streets, homes, hospitals, schools, offices, restaurants, and so on. Future is the most dominant element of the storytelling. We have Human-Master Future and Robot-Master Future - two central ideological representations of utopia and dystopia. Human-Master may incorporate the use of robots/AI, and this chronotope calls for “robot-enhanced humanity” with robots serving humans. Robot-Master Future is a more predominant rhetoric. That chronotope assumes “robot apocalypse.” This is where machines are presented as “demons” and “supervillains” that most likely will “destroy humanity.”