Australian writers have been envisioning AI for a century. Here are 5 stories to read as we grapple with rapid change
There is, in fact, more than 100 years’ worth of Australian literature about AI and robotics.
- There is, in fact, more than 100 years’ worth of Australian literature about AI and robotics.
- Nearly 2,000 such works are listed in the AustLit database, a bibliography of Australian literature that includes novels, screenplays, poetry and other kinds of literature.
- As part of an ongoing project, we are creating a comprehensive list of Australian literature about AI and robots.
- Here are five Australian literary works of particular relevance to national conversations about AI.
The Automatic Barmaid
The Automatic Barmaid is a short story by Ernest O’Ferrall, who wrote under the pen name “Kodak”. Like his contemporaries Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, Kodak was best known as a writer of comedic bush stories.
- The story concerns an automaton named Gwennie, who at first seems too good to be true, as she is cheaper and more efficient than a human barmaid.
- The Automatic Barmaid is a humorous depiction of robots as tempting and cheap but not always suitable replacements for human labour.
- The Automatic Barmaid shows how persistently sceptical we have been about our technologies over the last century, and how much we value human workers’ adaptability and resilience.
The Successors
- His 1957 short story The Successors begins with a general and a professor meeting while their planet – presumably Earth – is under attack from an unknown race of invaders.
- The professor muses that, in the end, the humans and the robots are not so different after all.
- The Successors explores an as yet unachieved scenario.
- Most current AI systems are what we call “narrow”, and can only complete a limited number of tasks in specific areas.
- Although many people believe that AGI is still a long way into the future, thinking about extreme future scenarios, like the one in The Successors, can help us identify where we might need to mitigate risk.
Moon in the Ground
- Keith Antill’s novel Moon in the Ground was published by pioneering Australian science fiction press Norstrilia in 1979.
- Moon in the Ground speaks to the longstanding connections between defence and robotics, autonomous systems and AI – connections that Australia is now looking to strengthen.
- However, as Moon in the Ground shows, chasing that power too keenly can be destructive.
The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople
- The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople, a short story by Anthony Panegyres, was published in 2014 as part of the steampunk collection Kisses by Clockwork.
- The story centres on Phyte, a robot who looks and acts like a human boy, apart from having a metal plate on his chest and occasionally producing steam.
- The Tic-Toc Boy of Constantinople encourages us to think about how bodies are central to our experiences of the world.
Clade
James Bradley’s 2015 cli-fi novel Clade follows a family from the near future living in an increasingly precarious and unpredictable world faced with ecological collapse. AI plays a relatively minor part in the narrative, but when it does appear, it is represented ambivalently.
- The sims can read and mimic the responses of people who interact with them.
- The customers start making the dead less like they were and more as they would have preferred them to be.
- Dylan faces his own ethical dilemma when he comes across a request to build a sim of an ex-girlfriend’s brother.
- Clade encourages us to think about where our boundaries might be and why.
Making sense of the world
Humans tell stories to make sense of the world. Literary representations have much to tell us about how we understand and respond to the rapidly advancing and seemingly unpredictable technology of AI. To develop AI and robots that best respond to the needs of Australians, we can learn a lot from reading our own literature.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.