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Technology Anxiety in British and American SF: Artificial Intelligences as Catalysts for Ontological Awakening

Sims, Christopher A.

Abstract Details

2012, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, English (Arts and Sciences).
This project examines the representation of technology anxiety human subjects feel when encountering artificial intelligences in four British and American SF novels: 1)Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? 2) Neuromancer 3) 2001: A Space Odyssey 4) Cloud Atlas. While many critical investigations of these novels focus on the dangerous and negative implications of AIs, this work uses Martin Heidegger's later writings on technology to argue that AIs might be more usefully read as catalysts for human ontological realignment. Such a transformation leads technologically saturated humans away from an imperious ontology of ¿¿¿¿¿¿¿enframing¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ that Heidegger sees as the danger of modern technology and toward the saving power that changes the human posture with respect to beings from a colonial, domineering stance to a pious posture of abetting. I contend that it is not enough to simply read the danger AIs pose without seeing the salvation they also reveal.
George Hartley, PhD (Committee Chair)
Joseph McLaughlin, PhD (Committee Member)
Katarzyna Marciniak, PhD (Committee Member)
Robert Briscoe, PhD (Committee Member)
Linda Zionkowski, PhD (Advisor)
377 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Sims, C. A. (2012). Technology Anxiety in British and American SF: Artificial Intelligences as Catalysts for Ontological Awakening [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1335361175

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Sims, Christopher. Technology Anxiety in British and American SF: Artificial Intelligences as Catalysts for Ontological Awakening. 2012. Ohio University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1335361175.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Sims, Christopher. "Technology Anxiety in British and American SF: Artificial Intelligences as Catalysts for Ontological Awakening." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio University, 2012. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1335361175

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)