ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the complex interaction between metaphors and perception will be outlined referring to artificial intelligence and its characteristic metaphor a machine is a human mind.
Artificial intelligence invites us on a journey of discovery: We dive into it and try to understand and handle it. How we perceive it depends crucially on the metaphors we use. They are a fundamental principle of human thinking. Thus, metaphors help us to construct reality and let us view the world variously.
A metaphor is based on a mapping process between two different domains. Typically, this process is driven by our sensory and emotional experiences as well as by the culture we live in. The created metaphor in turn affects our perception, feeling, thinking, and acting within the subject we try to grasp. Consequently, metaphors are an essential communication tool and may become a crucial success factor for innovations. Using artificial intelligence as an example, it will be shown that metaphors have the power to illuminate the unknown (developmental perspective) as well as affect the perception of the society and promote acceptance (social perspective). Therefore, this chapter ends up with some basic ideas on how to work with metaphors during innovation processes.
