In this conversation, we explore the cultural foundations of artificial intelligence with Nina Beguš, Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley and author of "Artificial Humanities: A Fictional Perspective on Language in AI." Nina makes a compelling case for an entirely new field—one that brings humanistic insights into the very creation of technology rather than treating humanities as critical afterthought or ethical guardrail.
Nina's work emerged from recognizing patterns everywhere she looked: the same fictional scripts appearing in technology products, films, and Silicon Valley's imagination. When Siri launched as a feminized virtual assistant designed to build rapport, Nina immediately asked "why is it a woman?" and began tracing how deeply fiction shapes our technological reality—not as metaphor but as blueprint.
Key themes we explore:
The Pygmalion Template: How an ancient myth—male creator produces idealized woman, projects desire onto creation—persistently shapes virtual assistants and AI interfaces
From Marble to Cockney to LLMs: Tracing evolution from Ovid through Shaw's "Pygmalion" to the "ELIZA effect" named after Eliza Doolittle
Language No Longer Uniquely Human: The profound implications of machines using language eloquently without consciousness
Monolingual AI at Global Scale: How tokenization creates structural monolingualism beyond just favoring English
Writers Responding to AI: Nina's project gathering sixteen writers to reflect on what happens when language is no longer exclusively human
Planetary Ontology: Collaborative work seeing human/nature/technology as sitting "in the same continuum of this planet"
Nina Beguš is Researcher and Lecturer at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society at the University of California, Berkeley. She graduated with a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Harvard University. During her time at the Berggruen Institute and ToftH, she helped implement novel humanities-based consulting techniques for big tech companies.
Dave Edwards is a Co-Founder of Artificiality. He previously co-founded Intelligentsia.ai (acquired by Atlantic Media) and worked at Apple, CRV, Macromedia, Morgan Stanley, Quartz, and ThinkEquity.
Helen Edwards is a Co-Founder of Artificiality. She previously co-founded Intelligentsia.ai (acquired by Atlantic Media) and worked at Meridian Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric, Quartz, and Transpower.
