Your Guide to the Top 10 “AI Media Frames”
Media coverage of AI can be broken down into 10 leading “AI Frames.” Among them, some are more prevalent than others.
They were organized from the most positive to the most negative in this paper: “Where exactly between utopia and dystopia? A framing analysis of AI and automation in US newspapers."1
I think they are really helpful for understanding the different themes around AI.
So, here are their (slightly edited) descriptions:
The most positive frame is called "Gate to Heaven." It exaggerates the potential benefits and the positive consequences of AI. It's going to save us all. It's going to solve climate change, diseases, et cetera.
The "Helping Hand" frame is the "copilot" theme. Personal assistant - AI assists humans in performing tasks. It's not replacing us, the jobs; it's helping with tasks. Using those tools will free people to do other, better, more interesting tasks.
The third one, "Social Progress and Economic Development," is about how we're in the process of constantly improving our quality of life. The "economic development" part is about what's going to happen to our economy with the market benefits, and the competitiveness at the local, national, and global levels.
Then comes the "Public Accountability and Governance" framing, the call for AI regulation. The focus is on policymaking, issues like control, ownership, and transparency.
In the middle is "Scientific Uncertainty." This debate is talking more about the "unknown" than the "what we know," and the emphasis is, of course, about AI being and remaining a "black box" that we don't totally understand what's going on in there.
Next is "AI Ethics." Moral judgment, respect or disrespect for boundaries, and issues that require guardrails, like bias, privacy violations, and misinformation.
"Conflict" is about the battle to win the “arms race” of developing the latest AI technology. A war between elites, between companies, “Who's ahead, who's behind?”
"Shortcoming" is about how AI lacks specific features that require the proper assistance of humans. Due to its flaws, like "Garbage in, garbage out" and hallucinations, humans must oversee the technology.
Now, the negativity becomes stronger with the "Kasparov Syndrome" framing: This emerging technology is going to overrule us and overthrow us. Humans will lose part of their autonomy. The outcome is job losses, not tasks, but employment; we're going to lose our jobs.
The last one is "Frankenstein Monster or Pandora's Box." It includes all the doom scenarios, possible catastrophes, and existential threats that you can imagine about how it's going to be out of control. This frame exaggerates the dangers of AI, and how it's going to kill us all.
Noah Smith once wrote: “Humans are not fully autonomous thinkers; we are collective beings. We learn by conversation.” So, let’s have a conversation.
Based on this “AI Frames” list, we can discuss two things further:
- What is being amplified: Where do you think the current focus is?
- What is being omitted: What topics should get more attention?2
Hannes Cools, Baldwin Van Gorp, and Michael Opgenhaffen, (2022). Where exactly between utopia and dystopia? A framing analysis of AI and automation in US newspapers. Journalism, https://doi.org/10.1177/14648849221122647.
Nirit Weiss-Blatt, “What’s Wrong with AI Media Coverage & How to Fix it,” AI Panic Newsletter, September 10, 2023, https://www.aipanic.news/p/whats-wrong-with-ai-media-coverage.