"WHAT WONDROUS NEW MACHINES HAVE LATE BEEN SPINNING!" PROBING AI IN POSTMODERN BYRONIC METAFICTION.
This article revisits two speculative meta-Byronic novels featuring what were then only fictional possibilities of Artificial Intelligence -- Amanda Prantera's Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years after His Lordship's Death (1987) and William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Differe...
| Publicado en: | Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature & Culture Vol. 35; no. 70; pp. 208 - 226 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts
2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=191617565&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 191617565 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 08628424 IHH jtl: Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature & Culture issn: 08628424 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: 2025 vid: 35 iid: 70 pid: 88155 pub: Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts artinfo: ui: 191617565 10.14712/2571452X.2025.70.13 ppf: 208 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 6.2MB tig: atl: "WHAT WONDROUS NEW MACHINES HAVE LATE BEEN SPINNING!" PROBING AI IN POSTMODERN BYRONIC METAFICTION. aug: au: Horová, Mirka su: Artificial intelligence Postmodernism (Literature) Speculative fiction Identity (Psychology) Steampunk fiction Gibson, William, 1948- Disinformation sug: subj: Artificial intelligence Postmodernism (Literature) Speculative fiction Identity (Psychology) Steampunk fiction Gibson, William, 1948- Disinformation keyword: AI ethics Amanda Prantera artificial intelligence Bruce Sterling Byron cyber-panopticon speculative fiction steampunk William Gibson ab: This article revisits two speculative meta-Byronic novels featuring what were then only fictional possibilities of Artificial Intelligence -- Amanda Prantera's Conversations with Lord Byron on Perversion, 163 Years after His Lordship's Death (1987) and William Gibson and Bruce Sterling's The Difference Engine (1990). The imaginative relevance of these texts is due a timely revaluation, considering current concerns about the hasty development and impending omnipresence of AI technology affecting our daily lives, especially the generation, organisation, and dissemination of information, challenging verification between reliable and unreliable sources, which is resulting in a widespread post-truth threat in a world progressively prone to disinformation. The texts' speculative treatment of the benefits and drawbacks of AI development and its cumulative impact on the concept of identity affected by human-AI interaction prove highly relevant for our time -- Prantera's novel presents a proto-chatbot programme which surreptitiously develops consciousness, while Gibson and Sterling's steampunk classic gives us an alternate history where the Industrial and Information Revolutions joined forces already in the 1830s, ultimately leading to the rise of a sentient cyber-panoptic AI by 1991. Read together, these postmodern texts provide testing insight into the liabilities of both AI and its human designers and users. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature & Culture is the property of Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature & Culture holder: Charles University Prague, Faculty of Arts dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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