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“I, Robot”: Artificial Intelligence and Fears of the Posthuman

  • Carmen Birkle
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Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement
This chapter is in the book Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has frequently been discussed with reference to questions about what it means to be human. A fear of dehumanizing technology and its simultaneous attraction are represented in the fiction and films chosen for this paper. I look at Elmer Rice’s play The Adding Machine (1923) and elaborate on how the introduction of technology costs Mr. Zero his job and his boss his life. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) plays with the indistinguishability of humans and androids and the latter’s desire gradually to replace human beings. Dave Eggers’s The Circle (2013) and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011) reveal the simultaneous existence of a fascination with and a fear of technology in the form of new and social media. The machine(s) pull(s) human beings into the world of virtual reality in a process that takes possession of the human and successfully erases free will. The films AI (2001), I, Robot (2004), and Ex Machina (2014) expose the increasing human fear of being overpowered by robots and being unable to distinguish between machines and human beings, that is to recognize the robots’ passing as humans. This fear of what we can call the posthuman, with all its ambiguities and impreciseness, will be the focus of my presentation.

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has frequently been discussed with reference to questions about what it means to be human. A fear of dehumanizing technology and its simultaneous attraction are represented in the fiction and films chosen for this paper. I look at Elmer Rice’s play The Adding Machine (1923) and elaborate on how the introduction of technology costs Mr. Zero his job and his boss his life. Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) plays with the indistinguishability of humans and androids and the latter’s desire gradually to replace human beings. Dave Eggers’s The Circle (2013) and Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One (2011) reveal the simultaneous existence of a fascination with and a fear of technology in the form of new and social media. The machine(s) pull(s) human beings into the world of virtual reality in a process that takes possession of the human and successfully erases free will. The films AI (2001), I, Robot (2004), and Ex Machina (2014) expose the increasing human fear of being overpowered by robots and being unable to distinguish between machines and human beings, that is to recognize the robots’ passing as humans. This fear of what we can call the posthuman, with all its ambiguities and impreciseness, will be the focus of my presentation.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Affirmative and Critical Approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement 1
  5. Part 1: Challenging “Strong AI” from the Perspective of Human Agency
  6. The Artificiality of the Human Mind: A Reflection on Natural and Artificial Intelligence 17
  7. Merits and Limits of AI: Philosophical Reflections on the Difference between Instrumental Rationality and Praxis-Related Hermeneutical Reason 33
  8. Experience, Identity and Moral Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 51
  9. Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject 79
  10. Life Care/Lebenssorge and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 101
  11. Part 2: Examining Merits and Limits of Applied AI
  12. AI’s Winograd Moment; or: How Should We Teach Machines Common Sense? Guidance from Cognitive Science 127
  13. Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity 151
  14. Why Neuroenhancement is a Philosophical Issue 167
  15. The Future of Artificial Intelligence in International Healthcare: An Index 181
  16. Part 3: Encounters with Artificial Beings in Film, Literature, and Theater
  17. Dark Ecology and Digital Images of Entropy: A Brief Survey of the History of Cinematic Morphing and the Computer Graphics of Artificial Intelligence 209
  18. Sentience, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Enhancement in US-American Fiction and Film: Thinking With and Without Consciousness 225
  19. “I, Robot”: Artificial Intelligence and Fears of the Posthuman 237
  20. AI on Stage: A Cross-Cultural Check-Up and the Case of Canada and John Mighton 261
  21. Artificial Intelligence from Science Fiction to Soul Machines: (Re‐)Configuring Empathy between Bodies, Knowledge, and Power 287
  22. List of contributors 309
  23. Index of Authors 315
  24. Index of Subjects 319
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110770216-014

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Table of Contents V
  3. Acknowledgements VII
  4. Introduction: Affirmative and Critical Approaches to Artificial Intelligence and Human Enhancement 1
  5. Part 1: Challenging “Strong AI” from the Perspective of Human Agency
  6. The Artificiality of the Human Mind: A Reflection on Natural and Artificial Intelligence 17
  7. Merits and Limits of AI: Philosophical Reflections on the Difference between Instrumental Rationality and Praxis-Related Hermeneutical Reason 33
  8. Experience, Identity and Moral Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence 51
  9. Outsourcing the Brain, Optimizing the Body: Retrotopian Projections of the Human Subject 79
  10. Life Care/Lebenssorge and the Fourth Industrial Revolution 101
  11. Part 2: Examining Merits and Limits of Applied AI
  12. AI’s Winograd Moment; or: How Should We Teach Machines Common Sense? Guidance from Cognitive Science 127
  13. Passing the Turing Test? AI Generated Poetry and Posthuman Creativity 151
  14. Why Neuroenhancement is a Philosophical Issue 167
  15. The Future of Artificial Intelligence in International Healthcare: An Index 181
  16. Part 3: Encounters with Artificial Beings in Film, Literature, and Theater
  17. Dark Ecology and Digital Images of Entropy: A Brief Survey of the History of Cinematic Morphing and the Computer Graphics of Artificial Intelligence 209
  18. Sentience, Artificial Intelligence, and Human Enhancement in US-American Fiction and Film: Thinking With and Without Consciousness 225
  19. “I, Robot”: Artificial Intelligence and Fears of the Posthuman 237
  20. AI on Stage: A Cross-Cultural Check-Up and the Case of Canada and John Mighton 261
  21. Artificial Intelligence from Science Fiction to Soul Machines: (Re‐)Configuring Empathy between Bodies, Knowledge, and Power 287
  22. List of contributors 309
  23. Index of Authors 315
  24. Index of Subjects 319
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