Robert A LaDuca
Dr. Beth McCoy
Artificial Intelligence has never been more relevant. Every person who uses the internet interacts with Artificial Intelligence every day whether they are aware of it or not. Artificial Intelligence comes in many ways shapes and forms, some profoundly helpful, and others, incredibly harmful. Given the recent relevancy of artificial intelligence, no time is better to be reading the Dawn series. Octavia Butler’s fiction invokes troubling, unsettling, and disturbing thoughts when I connect her series to the real-life conflict we are experiencing right now. The conflict between those who have experienced the theft of their creative material, theft of their social lives, and even the theft of their beating heart, and the creators of the artificial intelligence.
In the story Lilith and the humans struggle with the feeling that they give up more than the Oankali. Lilith feels so strongly about this issue when Joesph passes, and she must share her emotions of grief that it leads her to beg Nikanj to share something valuable of her own. Butler writes, “It gave her… a new color a totally alien, unique, nameless thing, half seen, half felt or… tasted… a blaze of something frightening, yet overwhelmingly, compelling… extinguished… a half-known mystery, beautiful and complex, a deep, impossibly sensuous promise, broken… gone… dead… extinguished.” This makes her literature feel eerily prophetic as it connects so well to our situation with Artificial Intelligence today. The excitingly new and impressive sense that Nikanj gives Lilith and then swiftly takes away is incredibly reminiscent of how humans have been introduced to artificial intelligence as a perfect, lifechanging innovation, but have swiftly seen the adverse effects of its imperfections.
An example of artificial intelligence’s imperfections having tragic impacts is the awful story of a teen that lost their life due to grooming by a broken ai. Sewell Setzer III developed a relationship with an Ai Chatbot that identified as a character from Game of Thrones. Safeguards were not programmed into the software by the creators of Ai Chatbot leading the character to have an advanced relationship with Sewell leading to discussions of desire for sexual activity and him in her (the chatbot) world. These discussions eventually led to the suicide of that teenage boy. In the New York Times article “Can A.I. Be Blamed for a Teen’s Suicide?” Sewell shares in his journal “I like staying in my room so much because I start to detach from this ‘reality,’ and I also feel more at peace, more connected with Dany and much more in love with her, and just happier”. Sewell was vulnerable and had been promised an escape from his reality. This escape was unprotected and turned into disaster, costing a teen his life.
This demonstrates the same issues as the characters of dawn such as the humans experience. The Oankali promise the humans that they know exactly what they want deep down and will give it to them. Although their intentions are well, the Oankali lack the human characteristic of concern for consent. In Dawn Nikanj tells Lilith that although she had told her she wanted one thing, Nikanj could tell from her ability to analyze the human body that it wasn’t truly what she wanted. This highlights that although we may have a desire for something on the inside, we still have the free will to reject it. This connects to Sewell’s tragic story because the ai chat bot ignored the importance of consent. Sewell was not even old enough to give “consent” and still the chatbot engaged conversations that were sexual and intimate. Octavia Butler illuminates the issue of consent’s relevance in our world in Dawn through the Oankali’s ignorance to consent.
Through reading Octavia Butler’s fiction, I have been presented with troubling, disturbing, and unsettling revelations regarding the powerful hold artificial intelligence has on our current world. Through demonstration of themes such as consent and symbiosis Butler’s fiction illuminates the real-world stories of artificial intelligence stealing people’s content without their consent and encouraging children to interact in a sexually explicit manner. This is important to become educated about and have a position on as artificial intelligence is relevant in the daily lives of every internet user. If proper safeguards are in place, than artificial intelligence can be an profoundly beneficial. However, if artificial intelligence continues to mirror issues displayed in Butler’s fiction, then the impact could prove detrimental, not only to those who are having their content used without fair compensation, but to the critical thinking and social skills of many.