ABSTRACT
This chapter challenges discourses around artificial intelligence that frame the relationship between humans and machines as either a competition between autonomous entities or a collaboration between users and tools. It proposes instead a perspective on human–machine relationships grounded in posthumanist theories which positions both ‘humanity’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ as emergent phenomena arising at the intersection of the three interrelated practices of interfacing, inferencing, and imagining. Rather than framing AI as either saviour or threat, the chapter proposes a diffractive reading of human–AI relationships that attends to the ‘interference patterns’ through which both human and machine capabilities materialise in specific contexts. The chapter argues that we should regard AI as a provocation to think in new ways about the contingent and partial nature of intelligence, creativity, ethical judgment, and humanity itself. This approach positions humanity as a ‘site of repair’ where we must continually reimagine the boundaries between not just humans and machines, but also between ourselves and other humans, other creatures and the planet that we live on.
