Description
Book Synopsis Intelligent machines have long existed in science fiction, and they now appear in mainstream films such as Bladerunner, Ex Machina, I Am Mother and Her, as well as in a recent proliferation of literary texts narrated from the machine''s perspective. These new portrayals of artificial intelligence inevitably foreground dilemmas related to identity and selfhood, concepts being reassessed in the 21st century.
Taking a close look at novels like Ancillary Justice, Aurora, All Systems Red, The Actuality, The Unseen World and Klara and the Sun, this work investigates key questions that arise from the use of AI narrators. It describes how these narratives challenge humanist principles by suggesting that selfhood is an illusion, even as they make the case for extending these principles to machines by proposing that they are not so different from humans. The book examines what is at stake with nonhuman narration, the qualities of AI narratives, and wha
Trade Review
The author's analysis of each text is thorough, detailed and convincing."—Dr. Shawn Edrei, Tel-Aviv University
Table of Contents
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Talking Objects
- 1. Corporeality, Selfhood, and Narrative Shifts in Ancillary Justice
- 2. The Dawning of AI Sentience in Aurora
- 3. From Object to Subject in All Systems Red
- 4. Seeing the Narrative in The Unseen World
- 5. (Post) Human Rights in The Actuality
- 6. Klara Speaks: Narrative Voice in Klara and the Sun
- Conclusion: AIs and Posthuman Subjectivities
- Bibliography
- Index
