Kanta Dihal

Kanta Dihal is a postdoctoral researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge. In her research, she explores how fictional and nonfictional stories shape the development and public understanding of artificial intelligence. Kanta’s work intersects the fields of science communication, literature and science, and science fiction. She has a PhD in science communication from the University of Oxford: in her thesis, titled ‘The Stories of Quantum Physics,’ she investigated the communication of conflicting interpretations of quantum physics to adults and children. She is co-editor of the forthcoming collection AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking About Intelligent Machines (Oxford University Press, 2020) and is currently working with Dr Stephen Cave on the monograph AI: A Mythology. She is currently co-authoring AI: A Mythology with Dr Stephen Cave, with whom she recently published the article ‘Ancient dreams of intelligent machines’ in Nature.

Her popular writing has appeared in, among others, the Huffington Post, Aeon, and New Scientist. She has been an invited speaker on national and international radio and at events including CogX, FutureFest, and New Scientist Live.