Author: Magdalene Kennell

After this semester-long journey to understand Octavia Butler’s imagined world in the Xenogenesis Trilogy and the landscape artificial intelligence, or AI, lays out for us in the “actual” world, I have begun to develop a perspective on the problems and solutions that both Butler’s story and the prospect of AI bring up. Although I try not to put myself into one box when it comes to complex topics like AI, I think now I better understand and appreciate the both/and, as Dr. McCoy would say, of AI. It can be thought of as both a tool to increase efficiency (for example, using Chat GPT when writing) and a tool that takes away the art of creating a completely original piece of work. The same both/and technique could be used when analyzing Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy. It can be both a series that seemingly explores the idea of an alien takeover of the human race, and a series that celebrates the never-ending diversity and chance for new opportunity so often found in the world. Having this opportunity to reflect and consider my perspectives on Octavia Butler’s trilogy and the topic of AI is something I’m grateful for because it allows me to go through the process of self-reflection that we’ve practiced in our writing all semester long.

I’ve read one of Butler’s other novels, The Parable of the Sower, during a previous semester for another class, and having read some of Butler’s work before, I felt like I had a leg up when I was coming into Lilith’s and the Oankali’s world. I appreciated the complexity of the novels Butler crafted and the intention she put into her writing. I was so drawn into the first part of the trilogy, Dawn, that it felt hard to connect with the characters leading the stories in the books that followed. I remember we had a discussion in class one about the ill-fated sequel that can never quite hit as well as the original novel did. Unfortunately, I think both Adulthood Rites and Imago had this effect on me. I found Lilith’s character was so magnetic and easy to connect with, that it was difficult for me to connect with either Akin or Jodahs. In some ways, reading the sequels through the construct point of view felt like reading a book written by AI. I knew that I was reading the experience of a person, but it felt so foreign still that many times while reading, I was taken out of the book and had to process what was happening. 

There were many ways in which the constructs and humans still differed by the end of the trilogy, and trying to connect to the constructs or Oankali’s reactions to the events of the trilogy felt as foreign as connecting to computers. Although this disconnect never left me with a lack of empathy for the Oankali or constructs. I felt such great sadness for Jodahs in the middle of Imago, when it was threatened with the possibility of the loss of its sibling Aaor, and the loss of its mates, Tomas and Jesusa. This moment struck me as especially important: “I never told them they couldn’t leave. They found out as Lilith had. When they had had all they could take of Aaor for a while, when they realized I could not be talked out of going with them to their mountain home, they went away on their own. They went together into the forest and stayed for several days. It was a foretaste for me of what I would suffer when they died” (Butler 164). Moments like this were what kept me locked into Akin’s and Jodahs’s stories. I know many of my classmates were turned away by the Oankali at the beginning of the semester, but connecting with Lilith’s POV and journey helped me to feel like a part of their world. By the time I was reading the following novels, I felt that even if I couldn’t relate to the Oankali, I could have compassion for them. This is something I find extremely prevalent in Butler’s trilogy, and one of the most important life lessons I feel like has been taught through her books. 

I think there is still a long way that AI has to go to cross my personal threshold to be considered a “good” thing. I’m still thinking about many of the negative impacts that have been brought up throughout the semester about AI. One factor that especially sticks with me is the environmental damage that AI does. As stated in the article “Refusing GenAI in Writing Studies: A Quickstart Guide” written by Sano-Franchini et al., “We know that using AI technologies like ChatGPT requires a significant amount of natural resources, including clean fresh water that is used to generate electricity to power data centers and to cool servers…researchers found that GPT-3 required 700,000 liters (185,000 gallons) of water, and 500 ml of water for every 10–50 responses”. I find this fact extremely concerning, especially after hearing about the repeated use of Chat GPT from my classmates and friends. Being constantly reminded of the problems and terrors of AI in the media has piled on another layer of stress when I consider the topic of AI. 

When I’m writing for a class or an assignment or even for fun, I’ve always found the idea of using Chat GPT as more time-consuming than time-saving. I thoroughly enjoy piecing together ideas by myself and taking part in the important analysis of texts I’ve read for my different classes. Taking the Oankali stance of the idea of generative AI as we use it in 2025, I’d say it’s not very resourceful or sustainable for the planet. Thinking back to Dawn, we know the Oankali value the idea of reusing/recycling and keeping materials in a constant state of beneficial use. One example of this was the interaction between Lilith and Nikanj, “Nikanj had acknowledged ‘its acceptance of her wandering by advising her to bury any uneaten food she did not want. “Feed it to the ship,” was the way it put the suggestion” (Butler 71). I believe that the Oankali would not appreciate our current human use of AI and the unfortunate waste that it produces. I can’t help but take this stance myself. I’ll admit that I use predictive AI applications like Grammarly or Google’s built-in spell check, however, I’m also sure to proofread my work multiple times and rely on close friends or family to help me catch any typos in my work. As much as we know that AI can be helpful and advance technology, we also know it can make mistakes and be inadvertently damaging.

Thinking back to the first week of this semester, we discussed different companies that’ve attempted to make facial recognition technology and utilize AI to help determine medical conditions such as rashes, tumors, and skin problems. One example is the Rochester-based company, VisualDX, that developed an AI-assisted app to detect different kinds of skin conditions. Although the idea comes from a place of good faith intentions, the flaws of many facial recognition technologies are the racial bias towards people of color. There’ve been personal accounts of programs like these not detecting darker skin, like what Dr. Bulamwini recalls in her book, Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines, “…even when I was looking straight into the camera, the system could not detect my face…Could the system detect any face? I tested this by drawing on the palm of my hand two horizontal lines for eyes, an L for a nose, and a wide U for a smile. I held my hand in front of the camera. The software detected my elementary markings as a face!…I looked around my office and saw the white mask that I’d brought to Cindy’s the previous night. As I held it over my face, a box appeared on the laptop screen. The box signaled that my masked face was detected. I took the mask off, and as my dark-skinned human face came into view, the detection box disappeared. The software did not ‘see’ me. A bit unsettled, I put the mask back over my face to finish testing the code. Coding in whiteface was the last thing I expected to do when I came to MIT, but—for better or for worse—I had encountered what I now call the ‘coded gaze’”(Buolamwini 10). This kind of bias is one of the major problems that continues with various generative AI technologies.

In an attempt to take the both/and approach once more, I think it’s hard to talk about all the flaws AI currently has without considering the current benefits that AI has to offer, and the possibilities for future innovations. Many people find that AI can be used like an assistant during their work, leading to a positive impact. As we read earlier in the semester from the Washington Post article by Danielle Abril. Many employees who work in corporate jobs use AI when faced with looming deadlines, or they use AI to help them map out their weeks and accomplish their upcoming goals and tasks, like an online planner. Understanding that all ideas must have their good and bad sides, it’s still difficult to accept AI technology when it feels like the negatives outweigh the positives. 

Overall, I think I’ve returned to the majority of my first opinions this semester about AI and the Xenogenesis trilogy. I was very excited to read more of Butler’s work and was willing to overlook any potential red flags that popped up in her writing. On the other hand, I came into this class with a negative attitude towards AI, even though I knew how many people ranted and raved about it. I’m now ending the semester with a greater appreciation for Butler’s work and a better understanding of exactly what AI is and how it actually benefits people in the real world, not just tech-lovers. However, I’ve also come to understand the various issues that can pop up when reading Butler’s trilogy, and I’ve realized more specifically how AI is environmentally and personally damaging. This semester has helped me expand my knowledge in both AI and the Xenogenesis trilogy, and I feel so thankful for the challenges in thinking and analysis I was given. I appreciate the idea that, after months of collaborative exploration and general research, sometimes my gut feelings about things can and will remain the same.

Having read Octavia Butler’s work before, I felt ready to step into her universe and understand the ideas Butler presents in the “Lilith’s Brood” trilogy. I also tried to remember Dr. McCoy’s PSA about Butler’s intentional traps: Butler purposefully creates situations that WE as humans may find similar to things that have gone wrong in our history. She does this to trigger our senses that something is wrong and we shouldn’t be okay with what is happening. While I read, I didn’t feel like the Oankali were out to get Lilith or the humans. It seemed to me that, based on the rules Butler set up for this world, the Oankali did what they thought was right for the humans. They didn’t, or couldn’t, consider what the humans desired, and they simply took the most efficient route and gave them what they wanted in a “good-faith” attempt to fulfill the humans’ unconscious needs. While I do consider my classmates’ feelings of suspicion about the Oankali’s intentions I’ve heard during our class discussions about Dawn, I had a hard time feeling fearful or doubtful of the Oankali throughout the book. 

Something that did, however, trouble me at the beginning of the novel was the image of Lilith and Jdahya’s first encounter. When the narrator detailed how Lilith slept on the floor beside the bed so she wouldn’t see Jdahya at all, or how she hid in the bathroom away from him, I felt that I would have had to do the same thing to sleep at all that night. I would’ve had an issue trying to interact with or touch the Oankali, especially if I thought about Lilith’s description. “She found herself still unable to take even one more step toward him. ‘Oh god,’ she whispered. And the hair–the whatever-it-was–moved…Medusa. Some of the ‘hair’ writhed independently, a nest of snakes startled, driven in all directions” (Butler 13). That archetypal mistrust of snakes is hard to overcome and provided me with the first troublesome aspect of Lilith’s story.

A part of the novel that concerned me more while reading was the pushback Lilith received while trying to “mother” the humans into being ready to return to Earth. I never wavered in my trust towards Lilith while reading the novel. I felt that for the most part, Lilith did what she thought was “right” concerning whatever situation she was in. When Nikanj began growing its sensory arms for example, “Nikanj lay down again and seemed to tremble…She neither knew nor cared what was wrong with it. She left it where it was and went out to get food…Angrily, she reopened the food compartments, took out extra food and went back in to Nikanj…She had not been able to leave Nikanj trembling in its bed while she enjoyed her greater freedom” (Butler 115). Lilith stayed with Nikanj and couldn’t bring herself to leave it while it went through “puberty”. I felt that Lilith’s actions throughout the rest of the novel reflected her intrinsic desire to care for others. 

That reasoning is why I felt unsettled when humans such as Tate, Gabriel, Curt, and Peter seemed to turn their backs on Lilith so quickly. While reading I was only able to experience the book through Lilith’s perspective, so it was exceedingly difficult to imagine myself in any other character’s position. It felt like Lilith was shoved into the position of Awakening humans and training them to return to Earth. I was upset that she faced so much resistance from her own species after begrudgingly living with the Oankali for so long. While the idea of consent between humans and Ooloi is a valid concern many people have while reading this book, I couldn’t imagine why violence was the go-to solution for Lilith’s doubters. I felt like I was experiencing the same emotions as Lilith while reading the novel, and I wanted the story to work in her favor.

I could not understand why the humans’ instinct was to separate from each other, break off into “teams,” and turn their training into a kind of fight. Whether the fight was between them and Lilith, or them and the Oankali, it didn’t seem to matter. Fear of the unknown was what united the humans. All they knew for sure was that the Earth had become uninhabitable. Why would they try to assume anything else other than what they know? I can understand why the “kill or be killed” survival method is necessary in some life-or-death situations, but I’m not sure this was one of them. While reading I tried to determine what might be best for any group of humans to do in a humans vs. aliens “war” situation. Most often I thought camaraderie would be a crucial component for survival, so I couldn’t understand why many characters didn’t naturally gravitate towards that.

It made me remember what Nikanj tells Lilith about the human race, “‘You are intelligent,’ he said. ‘That’s the newer of the two characteristics and the one you might have put to work to save yourselves. You are potentially one of the most intelligent species we’ve found’…‘What’s the second characteristic?’ ‘You are hierarchical. That’s the older and more entrenched characteristic…when human intelligence did not even acknowledge it as a problem, but took pride in it or did not notice it at all…That was like ignoring cancer” (Butler 41).  If I assumed the humans in Butler’s novel have the same “fight-or-flight” response as we do, then I could argue that many humans in “Part IV: The Training Floor” were wrestling between the two. I could also claim that there is another option in the “fight-or-flight” response. That third option would be: to understand. I believe that Lilith pushes past the initial fight or flight response and tries to understand why the Oankali act the way they do, even if she can’t fully do so. Many other humans, however, don’t take any time to think about why the Oankali do anything. They see a threat immediately and want to take action to dispose of it.

With any controversial issue, being aware of the risks and benefits will allow you to see what you’re dealing with from a broader perspective, rather than only favoring one side. This is the stance I tend to take on AI, knowing and hoping for all of the potential good it could cause for the world, while also being aware of the very serious risks and drawbacks that come with using AI technology. Being who I am, a college student going into a teaching career, I’ve had many conversations where AI was viewed negatively and I’ve had to consider what the “punishment” for using AI will be if I use it myself, or what the punishment against my students will be if they use AI for an assignment. Needless to say, I don’t contemplate the benefits of AI frequently in my day-to-day school experience. 

However, my boyfriend is a master’s student at the Rochester Institute of Technology studying Information Technology and Analytics with a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information and Technology. We’ve had several conversations about the use of AI and how he uses it every single day for his major and the few internships he’s completed. It’s given me an entirely new perspective on AI and how beneficial it can be in different job fields. Although our viewpoints have conflicted many times during these conversations, I cannot deny the importance and value that AI has in the lives of others. One article in particular that allowed me to see the benefits of AI is Danielle Abril’s Washington Post article, “Meet the ‘Super Users’ Who Tap AI to Get Ahead at Work”. The people described in this article have figured out a way to take AI and make it their personal assistant. This is an aspect of AI I can’t help but marvel at. Knowing there is a way to take advantage of all the best AI has to offer and make it work for you seems like a revolutionary idea for the lives of people who work in an office building or take part in daily meetings.

The only “drawback” with this concept is the amount of time it takes to tailor the AI to fit your specific needs. There is no “instant fix” for any project or problem you have to complete. Specifically in the “Super Users” article, a man detailed his use of AI during a 5-hour deadline. He was able to take the text he was supposed to read and have Chat GPT summarize it for him, which led him to complete his required summary document for an executive in 2.5 hours. I’ve found in my time student teaching that students want an instant solution. Chat GPT can churn out an essay in seconds. While this might seem like a perfect solution, if you don’t have the time to proofread what Chat CPT has written, you could end up putting yourself in a position to be punished for plagiarizing work, or including incorrect information in an essay. 

I do not believe that AI is inherently bad, however, I do think it can indulge people’s tendency for laziness. This unfortunately can make people more complacent and expect less of themselves, especially in the case of students who haven’t fully mastered a skill and turn to AI instead of developing the skill themselves, like writing the aforementioned essay. However, taking AI and using it to teach yourself a skill IS possible and useful in terms of using AI for school or work. This is what is highlighted by Abril in the Washington Post article which really shows readers how AI can be beneficial for them. Of course, the issue of AI in the media right now is almost always portrayed in a negative light. Partly due to the actual negative issues with AI, but also partly because of the tendency for negative news to become more “viral” with the general public.  

Using AI to automate things in your own life is one of the most beneficial and often undiscussed aspects of AI. I think most people have heard of the various virtual assistants on the market, such as the Amazon Echo with Alexa, the Google Home with Google Assistant, or the Apple HomePod with Siri. My family has several Alexas around their home and uses them to automate certain aspects of their day. Automating things around your house with a virtual assistant like Alexa can make day-to-day small interactions extremely efficient and save you time by doing different mundane tasks for you. Programming Alexa to turn on your lights at the time you come home from work, or programming your Google Nest thermostat to turn the heat down when you leave for work and turn it back on when you come home can actually save you money on electric bills. This use of AI is genuinely useful for everybody and can help make the smallest parts of your day more efficient, even though this technology is not the “traditional” image of what we picture AI as being. 

One of the biggest positive ambitions of AI that I’ve heard of is the use of AI to detect different forms of skin cancer. If AI came to a point where it could accurately detect different forms of skin cancer, it could be revolutionary for the medical community. As stated on the Visual DX website, patients have been able to get a detection of their skin cancer, and even have different questions answered about it to get a thorough differential diagnosis. The increased detection of skin cancer in its early stages could save people the trauma of late-stage cancer treatments, or the unfortunate fate of finding out too late and there being no further treatment to help them. 

One favorable aspect of the Visual DX detection software specifically is the ability to detect skin cancers on patients with darker skin. Unfortunately, other AI softwares trained to detect skin cancers fail communities of color. Christensen, et. al details in their article, “Medical Algorithms are Failing Communities of Color” how much of the data given to various other cancer detection software is homogenous and biased towards white patients. Visual DX has up to 28% of its data from people of color in order to give its detection software a more accurate data set to work with. 

AI as a technology has thousands of potential landmark achievements in various fields. Some of the potential is personal to help the average person streamline their day, and some is broader, helping save those with potentially fatal diseases, and being inclusive while doing it. Although many people will tell you that AI is terrible and should be banned, it’s important to remember that like all things, AI has its benefits and drawbacks. Working on improving the drawbacks now, will make the enjoyment of the benefits that much better in the future.