Daemons, Myths, and Monsters: Narratives of technology in the age of artificial intelligence

This one-day conference brings together scholars in digital narrative, literature, social science, and philosophy to discuss how we grapple with the mysterious and unpredictable in our interrelations with digital technologies. As human creativity, conversation, and relationships increasingly involve these technologies, narratives about them are vital to how we interact with these systems and with each other. 

One such narrative ties otherworldly forces, including demons, ghosts, and animating spirits, to scientific and technological power. This association has a centuries-long history, and it taps into the notion that despite their human origins, perhaps technologies are not as under human control as we think they are. The complex algorithmic technologies we currently surround ourselves with, from TikTok to ChatGPT, have so many billions of parameters that even their creators cannot know how and why they take certain actions. Perhaps the internet is indeed “made of demons,” as a recent meme claims.

But why “demons” or “spirits” or “monsters”? Why do we move so quickly from notions of rational, predictable machines to stories about inscrutable mystical forces? And what are these technological influences? How do they shape what we perceive, do, and say about ourselves? Are narratives about the mythical and magical helpful, or does assigning unknown powers to our devices and systems distort our judgements about their capabilities and place in society? 

This conference will discuss the origins and manifestations of these ghosts in our machines, inviting audiences to explore their own technological demons.

This conference is organized by Dr. Rosa Mikeal Martey, Digital Culture Fulbright fellow in residence at the Center for Digital Narrative, 2025-2026. It is hosted by the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen.

Schedule 

8:30 – 9:00. Coffee and pastries.

9:00 – 9:30. Welcome and opening remarks: Thinking with daemons. Rosa Mikeal Martey.

9:30 – 10:30. Historical resonances of demons, myths, and monsters. AJ Goga. Rosa Mikeal Martey.

10:30 – 10:45. Coffee break.

10:45 – 11:45. Monstrous and mystical imaginings. Anthony Enns. Marianne Gunderson.

11:45 – 12:45. Ghost and daemons in the (AI) machine. Zahra Rizvi. TBD.

12:45 – 13:45. Lunch at CDN Glass House.

13:45 – 15:30. Visualizing technologies: Lightning talks & poster session. Master’s degree students in the Digital Culture Program at UiB.

15:30 – 16:00. Closing remarks. Jill Walker Rettberg.

Speakers

Conference organizer: Rosa Mikeal Martey (external link), Digital Culture Fulbright Fellow, University of Bergen, Norway. Professor in Journalism & Media Communication, Colorado State University, USA: Contemporary imaginings of daemons in the machine.

Dr. Martey’s research focuses on social and cultural relations and imaginings of algorithmic technologies, especially generative AI. She integrates her prior work on digital identities, games, and social interaction in a posthumanistic framework to explore how we can better understand human relations with complex, agentic technologies.

Anthony Enns (external link), Associate Professor of Contemporary Culture in English, Dalhousie University, Canada:The haunted house in the age of AI.

Dr. Enns’ research focuses on the history of esoteric media practices inspired by the seemingly magical powers of new technologies, particularly with regard to spiritualist seances, extraterrestrial communication, and psychic enhancement. His research also examines cultural representations of such practices, which often serve to critique these techno-fantasies by exposing their fraudulent claims, potential dangers, and ideological functions.

AJ Goga (external link), PhD candidate in English Literature, University of Surrey, UK: Demonology and the historical resonance of demons, angels, and spirits.

AJ’s work focuses on how angels, demons, and other spirits are presented as genderqueer in 17th century British demonology and poetry. They discuss ways that spirits serve as (queer) custodians of (queer) knowledge, embody transgressive realities, and act as inscrutable guides to ideas and information typically inaccessible to the disempowered.

Marianne Gunderson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Algorithmic Folklore Project, Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen, Norway: Algorithmic monsters: How AI is produced as other and how AI creations are perceived as monstrous. 

Dr. Gunderson researches how large language models are used and understood in online vernacular culture, through the concepts of algorithmic folklore, AI imaginaries, and monstrosity. She is interested in the prompting as a relational practice, AI weirdness, and how LLMs are reconfiguring our understanding of the (post)human.

Zahra Rizvi, Postdoctoral Fellow, AI Stories Project, Center for Digital Narrative, University of Bergen, Norway: Flattened spirits and displaced monsters in GPT stories.

Dr. Rizvi studies cultural flattening and narrative bias in LLMs, popular culture, and interactive and synthetic media. Her interdisciplinary work engages pop culture and media studies, utopia/dystopia studies, game studies, and children’s and young adult literature.