Talking to Machines: Simulated Dialogue and the Problem with Turing in Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime

Maria Verena Peters

doi:10.1515/jcde-2021-0006

Article

Talking to Machines: Simulated Dialogue and the Problem with Turing in Jordan Harrison’s Marjorie Prime

Maria Verena Peters
studied English and Comparative Literature at Ruhr-University Bochum. She worked as a lecturer in British Cultural Studies and American Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum, the University of Siegen, and the University of Wuppertal. In 2015, she completed her PhD thesis at the University of Siegen, published as Crossover Literature and Age in Crisis at the Turn of the 21st Century: Harry Potter’s Kidults and the Twilight Moms (2018). She is currently employed at FernUniversität Hagen. Her research interests include the intersectionality of gender and age, popular culture, gothic, and science fiction.

Published/Copyright: May 19, 2021

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From the journal Journal of Contemporary Drama in English Volume 9 Issue 1

Abstract

Jordan Harrison’s play Marjorie Prime (Center Theatre Group, LA, 2014), a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2015, depicts social, medical, and therapeutic interactions between humans and machines. In contrast to other contemporary plays, Harrison’s script does not suggest experimenting with real robots on stage, but follows the traditional approach of having actors pretend that they are machines or, more specifically, projections steered by an artificial intelligence, so-called Primes. The play carefully avoids the “uncanny valley” (Mori) and spares the audience visceral reactions to the machines, instead focusing on philosophical questions about identity, memory, language, and humanness. The article will analyse the use of language as a theatrical code for machineness and explore the implications of language as a criterion for machineness and humanness respectively. Marjorie Prime will be contextualized with the Turing test, especially from the angle of disability studies, to show how the play can be read as a critique of humanism and a plea for posthumanism.

Keywords: Jordan Harrison; Marjorie Prime; Turing test; chatbot; humanism; posthumanism; language; communication; humanness; machineness

About the author

Maria Verena Peters

studied English and Comparative Literature at Ruhr-University Bochum. She worked as a lecturer in British Cultural Studies and American Studies at Ruhr-University Bochum, the University of Siegen, and the University of Wuppertal. In 2015, she completed her PhD thesis at the University of Siegen, published as Crossover Literature and Age in Crisis at the Turn of the 21st Century: Harry Potter’s Kidults and the Twilight Moms (2018). She is currently employed at FernUniversität Hagen. Her research interests include the intersectionality of gender and age, popular culture, gothic, and science fiction.

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Published Online: 2021-05-19

Published in Print: 2021-05-06

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jcde-2021-0006

Keywords for this article

Jordan Harrison; Marjorie Prime; Turing test; chatbot; humanism; posthumanism; language; communication; humanness; machineness