Artificial intelligence in science fiction

Ah, my first love. The topic of my Honours thesis. My ongoing obsession.

Unfortunately my chronic illness has kept me from pursuing postgraduate study in this field, but fear not! I am a super-nerd at heart, and I have continued to read and think and info-dump to anyone who will listen.

Here you will find an assortment of my thoughts on artificial intelligence (AI) in science fiction (SF), using my Honours research as a launching point. Like all of my Passion Projects, this collection is (and likely always will be) a work in progress.

Context

My Honours was in creative writing, so I read/think/write more about written texts. I will include films and games and other media as I come across them, but my knowledge of these is not very comprehensive.

I only read/speak English, so I’m limited to work available in English.

My chronic illness can cause cognitive difficulties, so I rarely have the brainpower for particularly complex academic work. I’ll probably miss some important texts, or misinterpret them, or give up on them entirely, but I’m sure there are other people on the internet writing interesting things about the stuff that goes over my head. I will link them as I find them.

I am not an expert! I am just an enthusiastic nerd, reading and writing about what interests me. I hope it interests you too.

A timeline of AI in SF

  • 1818: Frankenstein, Mary Shelley (novel)

  • 1920: Rossum’s Universal Robots, Karel Capek (play)

Towards a definition of AI for the SF context

This is an essay I’m working on. I’ll upload it soon, I promise. Super soon. Really.

Annotated bibliography

I’ve included things about real-world AI as well as science-fictional AI, because the two have always informed each other and are only becoming more closely entwined as time goes on. There’s also some broader SF genre theory stuff, because it’s interesting.

My favourites have an asterisk (*) next to them. Things I haven’t read yet have a… whatever this squiggle thing is called (~).

Nonfiction books

Papers

Novels, short stories, plays etc.

Stuff from cyberspace

Berkeley Day 2
October 26, 2018

“I had a nap in the afternoon and woke up in time to go to a lecture by Professor Stuart Russell, who is a computer scientist who specialises in AI, and whose work I cited in my thesis…”