Christopher A. Sims received a Ph.D. in literature from Ohio University, where he is a post-doctoral fellow. He lives in Columbus, Ohio.

This project examines the representation of anxiety about technology that humans feel when encountering artificial intelligences in four science fiction novels: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Neuromancer, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Cloud Atlas. By exploring this anxiety, something profound can be revealed about what it means to be a person living in a technologically saturated society. While many critical investigations of these novels focus on the dangerous and negative implications of artificial intelligence, this work uses Martin Heidegger's later writings on technology to argue that AIs might be more usefully read as catalysts for a reawakening of human thought.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Introduction

1.¿Heideggerian Technology Studies

2.¿HAL as Human Savior in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey

3.¿The Dangers of Individualism and the Human Relationship to Technology in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

4.¿AIs, Hatred of the Body, Cyborgs and Salvation in William Gibson's Neuromancer

5.¿David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas: Cloned AIs as the Leaders of an Ontological Insurrection

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index