| Popis: |
In this paper I wish to examine the wider philosophical issues broached upon by Ian McEwan in his latest book, Machines like Me (2019). The book charts the impact of commercially available A.I-powered humanoid companions onto the lives of their owners. I would like specifically to focus on the notion of empathy which McEwan revisits and complexifies as the characters interact and the humanoid Adam evolves. Studying the characterization of the Adams and Eves within the novel reveals the uses of a number of empathy building techniques: these help the reader identify with a robot and obfuscate the inner machinery of mechanics, electronics and AI. The posthuman robot, as a mimetic construction, is thus steered back into human territory.The attitudes and actions of the main human characters, Charlie, Miranda and Alan Turing, oscillate between care and monitoring, two notions that have recently been topical in philosophical and political debates. I would like to trace back the archaeology of those notions and show how they overlap and contrast in the novel, especially as AI techniques feed upon a constant monitoring of our lives through the production and exploitation of data by intelligent agents (Sadin 2013). McEwan’s portrayal of the interplay between institutions, technologies and human actions situates empathy within a wider, public and collective scene.Finally, by focusing on the life choices of Adam (the humanoid), I would like to come back to the new equation between empathy and computation, rather than emotions. McEwan’s reflection on empathy here crosses paths with the debates on the ethics of AI, especially in terms of decision-making and risk-assessment. |
