question archive Klara and the Sun: Technological dimensions of personhood 1
Klara and the Sun: Technological dimensions of personhood 1
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Klara and the Sun: Technological dimensions of personhood
1. Give two-paragraph comments on this writing below, that you agree or disagree with the writing and why?
This book conveyed several important themes that have made me much more aware of my own humanity. Before reading this book, I had never considered the classist division that could exist between humans and AI--I don't know if I would have even considered AI to be alive, since they were created by humans and their programming does not develop organically like the human brain does. However, reading this book from a robot's point of view provided an entirely new take on a robot's concept of emotions and morals. Klara's role as an AF, a friend, a caregiver, an observer, and a confidant gave her so many different lenses through which to perceive the world, especially in a society full of corrupt, antagonist, unstable humans. Ishiguro seemed to touch on so many different aspects of robot complexity, even spirituality, and still left the ending largely to the reader's imagination.
After reading this book, I think the most important characteristic of personhood is to have an emotional compass that largely influences you. I don't believe that something can be truly human if it only focuses on the clinical, methodical parts of life while ignoring the emotional aspects. If Klara hadn't possessed any sort of emotion, this book would have been extremely boring to read. I believe that in this book, even the robots have some grasp of emotional capacity, if not to the same level as humans, which is why I believe there should be a significant gap between robots and humans.
This links to the controversy surrounding care bots that we discussed in class. When it comes to healthcare services like surgeries, then robots are extremely helpful, because it requires more technical skill than human connection. However, if the patient requires comfort or has a psychological need for human connection, then humans are superior to robots in that regard because of our advanced emotional capacity and ability to form special bonds with our own species.
References:
Ishiguro, Kazuo. Klara and the Sun. Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.
