Sarah Dillon was seconded to LCFI from the Faculty of English for the academic year, October 2018 to September 2019. During this time she was Programme Director of the AI: Narratives and Justice Programme.
Dr Dillon is a University Lecturer in Literature and Film in the Faculty of English at the University of Cambridge. She is currently preparing two monographs arising out of the AI Narratives research. Listen: Taking Stories Seriously, co-authored with Claire Craig, makes a case for the value of attention to stories, and the importance of understanding their functions and effects, in the context of high-level decision-making and policy-making. Narrative Knowledge: Literature and Artificial Intelligence, investigates the role of literature in artificial intelligence research, addressing how AI researchers are influenced by literature, what direct roles literature plays in AI research, and how AI fiction imagines the role of literature in AI research and development. The book will demonstrate the contribution the study of literature makes to academic and public discussion of the social and ethical implications of AI.
Dr Dillon is author of The Palimpsest: Literature, Criticism, Theory (Bloomsbury 2007) and Deconstruction, Feminism, Film(Edinburgh University Press 2018). She is editor of David Mitchell: Critical Essays (Gylphi 2011), and co-editor of Maggie Gee: Critical Essays (Gylphi 2015) and AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking About Intelligent Machines (Oxford University Press 2020). She is Chair of the British Association for Contemporary Literary Studies and General Editor of the book series Gylphi Contemporary Writers: Critical Essays. Dr Dillon was a 2013 BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker and regularly works as a literary broadcaster across BBC Radio 3 and 4.
AI Narratives: A History of imaginative Thinking about Intelligent Machines PART I – ANTIQUITY TO MODERNITY 1: Homer’s Intelligent Machines: AI in Antiquity, Genevieve Liveley and Sam Thomas 2: Demons and Devices: Artificial and Augmented Intelligence before AI, E. R. Truitt 3: The Android of Albertus Magnus: A Legend of Artificial Being, Minsoo Kang and […]
BBC Radio 4 Today Programme: AI Special – broadcast 27 December 2017. Featuring CFI Researcher, Sarah Dillon (at 1.53.13 in) in which she countered media sensationalism with a message about the importance of analysing and diversifying popular narratives about AI if the technology is to provide a future we all want, rather than the one […]
Sarah Dillon in conversation with Londa Schiebinger, John L. Hinds Professor of History of Science at Stanford University and Director of the EU/US Gendered Innovations in Science, Health & Medicine, Engineering, and Environment Project. Download Podcast
Narratives and Artificial Intelligence: Seminar 23 January 2018 Part of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Performance Network (CIPN), Seminar series – supported by CRASSH Sound recording of a seminar featuring: Stephen Cave: Hopes and Fears for AI: Four Dichotomies Sarah Dillon: Displaying Gender Kanta Dihal: Personhood Beth Singler: AI and Film Chair: Satinder Gill (CIPN)
A film produced by University of Cambridge and directed by Jonathan Settle. Leading Cambridge University researchers discuss the far-reaching advances offered by artificial intelligence – and consider the consequences of developing systems that think far beyond human abilities. Featuring CFI Researchers – Sarah Dillon, Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Zoubin Ghahramani and Stephen Cave. Download Film
