Will they be our BEST BUDDIES or MORTAL ENEMIES?
I really enjoyed both of these stories. I read Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro when it came out in 2021 for a book club. A lively discussion that was, for sure. And I watched M3GAN in at home. It is based on a story by Akela Cooper and James Wan.
What will we be? What will AI become? Heavy questions in an entertaining wrapper.
There was a key question (or two) in the background of both of these narratives: how will we treat something we’ve uplifted? Are the beings we created more capable than us? Are they good? Or evil? Or not even worthy of considering the question?
The movies present the idea that AI might be good or evil.
Will they topple us from King of the Mountain? If so, they are a threat? Are they Frankenstein the monster, Planet of the Apes, M3gan, The Island of Doctor Moreau. These are our worst selves.
Are they cute? Or servants? Do they know their place? Clara, AI Artificial Intelligence movie (like Pinocchio), WALL-E the robot movie. They are the other. Maybe they are not even “beings” at all.
In some books, that “threat” is neutralized in the storyline: Consider Data from Star Trek, and Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot. These androids were immensely powerful, and yet had restraint. They are our best selves. The true human.
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Of these three examples: the threat-“the other“-the true human, they will rule us, or serve us, or befriend us. But it is “us” that is making “them”. So they are a mirror of humanity. How weird is that? lol
The real question: who are we?
I believe that we are the species that we are writing about when we write these stories of creating a new being. We are “the new species”, who expanded past our evolution as apes. And it is yet undetermined if we will be our worst selves or our best.
If we as a species were to work out that central question about ourselves, I believe the question of AI would also be resolved. Fingers crossed.
~Lizzy
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