A New AI Lexicon: Smart

Hallam is an Associate Professor in the History Programme and in the School of Biological Sciences at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Daniel is an external PhD candidate at eLaw -- Center for Law and Digital Technologies, Leiden University, the Netherlands. This essay is part of our ongoing "AI Lexicon" project, a call for contributions to generate alternate narratives, positionalities, and understandings to the better known and widely circulated ways of talking about AI. Much of the history, meaning, and imagination of AI is discussed in relation to the West, often against a backdrop of cybernetics, "AI winters," and Terminator androids. These narratives inform how we understand the risks and "social good" of AI.