What can speculative fiction teach us about technology?
by Jacob Pleasants
Nonfiction books are great. I read a lot of them, and I’ve learned a lot about how to think more deeply about technology for my efforts. Podcasts are great as well, and our recent blog post points out a bunch of good ones. It sometimes feels as if there’s far too much great stuff to read and listen to. Time is short, and the ecosystem large. And yet, I’m here today to make the case that if you enjoy and value deep thinking about technology, then speculative fiction has some very unique things to offer. And yes, there are recommendations as well!
Speculative fiction helps us imagine possible worlds and play out their implications and possibilities. They introduce new ways of relating to technology, point out paths-not-taken and unconsidered alternatives, and ultimately help us reflect on our own world and the choices we make. Also, the stories they tell can be engrossing and enjoyable – which never hurts.
There are, of course, many classic works that I could write about today. Brave New World, 1984, Neuromancer, the works of Isaac Asimov or Philip K. Dick – this is great stuff. But instead, I’d like to share a few recent novels that are very much worth a read and that all deal with a similar technological theme: artificial intelligence.
When it comes to AI, speculative fiction can often be rather dystopic, giving us bleak pictures of worlds dominated by all-powerful robots (movies like The Terminator and The Matrix come to mind). The three books that I suggest do not take that path. While they don’t always imagine very desirable futures, they avoid treating AI as either something dangerous or utopian. Instead, they consider what kinds of places artificial minds might occupy in society and what kinds of relationships might be possible between humans and AI.
AI is but one part of these books, and they all offer many other rich perspectives on technology. So, don’t think of these as books “about” AI. Really, they’re books about us, about what it means to be human, and what kind of relationships we ought to have with technology (intelligent or not) and each other.
In a later blog post, I’ll offer up some more fiction suggestions that share a common technological theme, so stay tuned!
Note: I actually “read” all of these as audiobooks, and can attest that the narration on each of them is great.
Klara and the Sun by Kashuo Ishiguro, 2021
Klara is a humanoid robot, designed to be a companion for an adolescent human. The story begins with Klara’s time on display in a store, but quickly proceeds to her experiences with the family that purchased her. This is not a story about a hyper-intelligent AI system run amok; far from it. She possesses an artificial intelligence that is remarkable in some ways, but extremely limited in others. The story is told primarily from Klara’s perspective, and we follow her as she tries to find her way in and make sense of the bewildering world that she inhabits. It is a world that is filled with complex social dynamics and relations, but also unsettling interactions between humans, technology, and the environment. Ishiguro is expert at creating provocative and “unsettling” worlds and narratives, and this most recent book explores many important technological themes. Also Consider: Never Let Me Go
A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers, 2021
This is the first in a series that Chambers is calling “Monk and Robot,” the second of which is now available as well (A Prayer for the Crown Shy). This book is set on a world where, in the distant past, human industry became over-developed and over-consumptive. Things came to a head when the robots they used in their factories became self-aware and left the yokes of their oppressors. Since that time, humans developed a totally new society that, while technologically sophisticated, abandoned the consumptive impulses of the past. The robots, for their part, went to live in a separate part of the world, with minimal contact with humanity. The society that Chambers imagines is intriguing in itself as a possible way that humans might live sustainably. But all this is simply the backdrop for the main narrative: the encounter and unexpected companionship between a human and a robot in a remote part of the world. In the ensuing cultural exchange, Chambers explores what it means to be a human, what it might mean to “be” an artificial being, and how the two entities might understand one another. The story and the world are full of thought-provoking ideas about the relationships between humans and technology. Also Consider: A Closed and Common Orbit
All Systems Red by Martha Wells, 2017
This is the first in a series that now has six entries, the most recent of which was released in 2021. In the this first novella, we follow a security android (some human bits with lots of machine parts), who calls itself “Murderbot.” They have managed to hack their “governor module,” which is meant to control their behavior. But what to do with this freedom? For now, Murderbot is stuck on a security assignment for a group of humans who are exploring a new world. It’s all very corporate and capitalistically motivated, and Murderbot doesn’t really care about any of it. They mostly just want to lie low, watch a whole lot of media (cheesy TV shows, it seems), and avoid interacting with humans as much as possible. Of course, they still have to do their security job, which means keeping the humans alive – despite their best efforts to get themselves killed. This book – and the whole series – is witty and engaging while also offering a fascinating and inventive look at the nature of artificial consciousness (either in part or full) and what a high-technology society might be like if it were wholly captured by corporate interests.