She challenges apocalyptic fears of technology and artifice by modeling ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love.
Botting's book explores the obligations of humanity to artificial creatures and the corresponding rights of those creatures.
She draws on Shelley's novels and modern political science fiction to challenge apocalyptic fears of technology and artifice.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 306 pages
Publication date: 25 April 2024
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Artificial Life After Frankenstein (2016) by Eileen Hunt Botting brings the insights of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear on the ethics and politics of creating artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. It examines the obligations of humanity towards these creatures and their corresponding rights, particularly in the context of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence. To address these questions, Botting draws on the imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851), whose novels "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" (1818) and "The Last Man" (1826) laid the foundation for a modern political strain of science fiction that explores the ethical dilemmas associated with creating artificial life through science, technology, and cultural change. In "Artificial Life After Frankenstein," Botting engages Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction in dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy to challenge apocalyptic fears surrounding AI and genetic engineering. She highlights how Shelley challenged prevailing myths about the potential destruction of the world, nature, and love by deconstructing and transforming the meanings of these concepts in the face of widespread fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and other authors of modern political science fiction, including H. G. Wells, have made significant contributions to our understanding of the ethical and philosophical implications of creating artificial life and intelligence.

Artificial Life After Frankenstein

Artificial Life After Frankenstein brings the insights born of Mary Shelley's legacy to bear upon the ethics and politics of making artificial life and intelligence in the twenty-first century. What are the obligations of humanity to the artificial creatures we make? And what are the corresponding rights of those creatures, whether they are learning machines or genetically modified organisms? In seeking ways to respond to these questions, so vital for our age of genetic engineering and artificial intelligence, we would do well to turn to the capacious mind and imaginative genius of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851). Shelley's novels "Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus" (1818) and "The Last Man" (1826) precipitated a modern political strain of science fiction concerned with the ethical dilemmas that arise when we make artificial life-and make life artificial-through science, technology, and other forms of cultural change. In "Artificial Life After Frankenstein," Eileen Hunt Botting puts Shelley and several classics of modern political science fiction into dialogue with contemporary political science and philosophy, in order to challenge some of the apocalyptic fears at the fore of twenty-first-century political thought on AI and genetic engineering. Focusing on the prevailing myths that artificial forms of life will end the world, destroy nature, and extinguish love, Botting shows how Shelley modeled ways to break down and transform the meanings of apocalypse, nature, and love in the face of widespread and deep-seated fear about the power of technology and artifice to undermine the possibility of humanity, community, and life itself. Through their explorations of these themes, Mary Shelley and authors of modern political science fiction from H. G. Wells to Ursula K. Le Guin have made significant contributions to our understanding of the ethical and philosophical implications of creating artificial life and intelligence.

Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781512826173