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Research Article

Fear and Awe: Making Sense of Generative AI Through Metaphor

Synthesis: Vallis, Wilson & Casey (2025) design and evaluate a metaphor-analysis workshop for making sense of generative AI in higher education, then thematically analyse the metaphors produced by students, academics, and educational support staff at a large Australian university. They map participant metaphors into four categories — Functions (tool-like, e.g. "Swiss army knife"), Roles (human-like, e.g. "helper," "frenemy"), Qualities (unknowable/unreliable, e.g. "black box," "slippery slope"), and Agency (autonomous/threatening, e.g. "competitor," "sinister robot") — surfacing persistent tensions between human versus machine agency and the known versus the unknowable. The study positions metaphor as a low-tech, embodied, collaborative sensemaking tool for critical AI Literacy, offering a workshop model that moves institutional discussion of GenAI beyond reductive "permit or prohibit" policies.

Key Findings

  • A four-category taxonomy of GenAI metaphors. Participant metaphors clustered into Functions (practical, tool-like: Swiss army knife, ideas generator, grammar checker), Roles (human-like relationships: helper, study buddy, personal tutor, frenemy), Qualities (unknowable, unreliable, or magical: black box, tip of the iceberg, slippery slope, genie in a computer), and Agency (volition and threat: competitor, invader, Frankenstein, sinister robot, HAL).
  • Two recurring tensions shape sensemaking: human versus machine Agency (is GenAI a tool we use or an autonomous actor that may replace us?), and the known versus the unknowable (opacity/"black box" versus magical-seeming capability). Both map closely onto prevailing literature on GenAI metaphors.
  • Metaphors reveal deep ambivalence. The most striking pattern was "friend/foe" dualities — double-edged sword, friendly terminator, frenemy, feeding the beast — reflecting participants' inability to take a definitive stance. Anthropomorphic Roles metaphors risk misplaced trust and over-attributed agency, masking the human, material dimensions of AI.
  • Cognitive offloading via tool metaphors is seductive but unsettling. Framing GenAI as a neutral "tool" (hammer, calculator) emphasises utility and control while downplaying its embedded values and biases — and participants were uneasy about offloading tasks requiring human judgment and Creativity.
  • The workshop itself was a validated sensemaking method. Grounded in material, collaborative, no-tech activities (sticky notes, a "gallery" of metaphors), the workshops helped participants surface assumptions, connect across roles and cultures, feel "not alone," and think about the ethics of GenAI — without requiring technical expertise.

Implications for AI in Education

The paper positions metaphor workshops as a practical, low-barrier tool for critical AI Literacy and institutional dialogue. For practice, a learning designer could use metaphor analysis to surface a teaching team's assumptions about GenAI before redesigning Assessment; for students, metaphor workshops enable meaningful conversation about GenAI use. At the institutional level, the authors argue for moving beyond binary "permit or prohibit" GenAI policies toward frameworks that acknowledge both opportunities (augmenting-device metaphors) and risks (black-box concerns), and for professional development that directly addresses fears such as AI replacing teaching roles. The findings connect to broader knowledge base themes of Human AI Collaboration, Cognitive Offloading, and the anthropomorphic framing of AI tools — complementing work on how instructors' metaphors construct and constrain AI understanding.

Connected Concepts

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Citation

Vallis, C., Wilson, S., & Casey, A. (2025). Fear and awe: Making sense of generative AI through metaphor. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2025(1), 14.

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