Article: Klara and the Sun—A Novel Shows Humans Through an AI Robot's Eyes

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The novel Klara and the Sun, written by the Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, hit bookshelves in 2021. The book follows the first-person narration of a solar-powered Artificial Friend (or AF) named Klara as she cares for a sickly girl. The story opens with Klara still on the showroom floor observing the world through the robot shop window, conversing with another girl AF named Rosa, and hoping a child will select her as a companion one day. Klara connects with a child named Josie through the window and, with some subterfuge, avoids another girl's interest, eventually going home as Josie's AF. Their home sits in a flat, rural place in an unspecified dystopian future where human children need to be "elevated." ‘Elevated’ refers to a risky genetic modification process for children that gives them the intelligence to compete in an AI-driven world. Josie's older sister Sal died from the side effects of elevation, and now Josie continues to struggle to survive the side effects, too. Klara, the AF, has a spiritual relationship with the sun, often referring to the sun's rays as nourishing and strengthening. Klara refers to the sun as "he," and she prays to the sun for Josie's health, believing that the sun can cure her charge as she had seen an apparently dead beggar and his dog brought back to life on the street in front of the robot store. In a contrasting line in the story, Josie's mother, Chrissie, devasted by the loss of her older daughter Sal, seeks to have Klara learn every aspect of Josie so that the robot can continue as Josie in case Josie dies. A central question in the book asks whether a person has a fundamental element that cannot be replicated by mathematics and machinery. In a conversation between Chrissie and the scientist, Mr. Capaldi, who's making a robotic replica of Josie's body, Capaldi says," A part of us refuses to let go. The part that wants to keep believing there's something unreachable inside each of us. Something that's unique and won't transfer. … There's nothing there. There's nothing inside Josie that's beyond the Klaras of this world to continue." In the end, Klara answers this question by observing that she could accurately represent Josie, but Klara could not reach what Josie's parents and friends felt in their hearts for her, an unreachable essence. Klara and the Sun developed Klara's artificial intelligence very differently than most sci-fi novels. In many books, the AI has a superintelligence that commands all knowledge, leveraging the ability to absorb and comprehend information at superhuman speeds. In contrast, Klara continuously learns about the world; most of it is new to her. She often describes how her visual perception of the world fragments into different boxes where the landscape or a room full of people takes on different shapes. Such a description tells how deep learning AI today learns by breaking down images into various features such as eyes and ears. When computer scientists visualize the process, it can look very distorted, like a surrealist painting by Salvador Dali. Moreover, Klara assumedly would have access to scientific information, but her view of the sun as an entity that rose from and descended back into the ground each day emphasized her literal interpretation of her observations of the world. Kazuo Ishiguro penned a remarkable book in Klara and the Son using an artificial friend to look at human interaction from a very compassionate position, probing themes of what makes us human and not algorithmic and asking whether a person can be continued as a machine. The author develops a rich character in Klara, and he takes a very different tack with her from the usual super intelligent robot. Through the process, Klara seeks to care for Josie and displays compassion and even self-doubt when newer model robots become available. Using sci-fi, Ishiguro presents a dystopian future where the trials of life have not dissipated, but he offers a challenge to what our relationship with AI will look like.

Dr. Smith’s career in scientific and information research spans the areas of bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, toxicology, and chemistry. He has published a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers. He has worked over the past seventeen years developing advanced analytics, machine learning, and knowledge management tools to enable research and support high-level decision making. Tim completed his Ph.D. in Toxicology at Cornell University and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of Washington.

You can buy his book on Amazon in paperback and in kindle format here.