Ethical Machines: Representations of Artificial Intelligence in Ian McEwans’s Machines Like Me and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun
Barbara KLONOWSKA
Department of English Literature and Culture, Institute of Literary Studies, Faculty of Humanities, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-8327-854X
Abstract
Artificial intelligence provokes contradictory reactions that range from enthusiasm and fear and that may be generalised as instances of technophobia and technophilia. AI is also a perennial theme of numerous fictional narratives which seem especially important as, due to their large audiences, images and stories representing AI enter popular debates. Two recent novels by eminent British authors, Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me (2019) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021), in either alternative past or futuristic settings also take up the issue of AI and its possible ramifications. The article argues that the two works represent AI as both beneficial and potentially problematic, posing the question about the essence of humanity and the limits of AI, problematising the status of intelligent machines and familiarising readers with ethical and legal problems they bring; they also try to build empathy and sensitise the public towards creatures other than humans.
Keywords:
AI, technophobia, self-consciousness, posthumanismDepartment of English Literature and Culture, Institute of Literary Studies, Faculty of Humanities, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8327-854X
