The pun we indulged in taking up the title of Benjamin's famous essay is useful to describe the effects of a highly disputed technological revolution, one the human community feels imminent. The cultural and anthropological consequences of the possibility of reproducing the artistic artefact made by a human being through technique were no less relevant than those that occur when the object of reproduction is the human itself. The present essay proposes a reflection on some science fiction stories in which anthropomorphic robots are described that are able to act and think in ways that require the emergence of consciousness and the unconscious, all that is more human and mysterious at the same time. We address such a vast and complex topic through the analysis of the dialogue between the human being and the machine, between evidential paradigm and psychoanalytic session. This study analyses some works belonging to literature, cinema and television that have declined these themes with different nuances: the interrogation aimed at determining the machine malfunction or deception in Liar! (1971) and Mirror Image (1972) by Isaac Asimov; the sessions carried out to establish the human or machinic nature of the investigated subject in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick and in the film Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott; the dialogues between programmers and androids of the TV series Westworld (2016–) by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Particularly relevant for the purposes of this study is Westworld, which stages the manifestation of the unconscious in the artificial intelligence. An oxymoron that unites the unconscious and its opposite, the artifice, to tell the artificial unconscious is a true representation of the impossible.
L'umano nell'epoca della riproducibilità tecnica: l'inconscio artificiale nella fantascienza
Piga Bruni E;
2019-01-01
Abstract
The pun we indulged in taking up the title of Benjamin's famous essay is useful to describe the effects of a highly disputed technological revolution, one the human community feels imminent. The cultural and anthropological consequences of the possibility of reproducing the artistic artefact made by a human being through technique were no less relevant than those that occur when the object of reproduction is the human itself. The present essay proposes a reflection on some science fiction stories in which anthropomorphic robots are described that are able to act and think in ways that require the emergence of consciousness and the unconscious, all that is more human and mysterious at the same time. We address such a vast and complex topic through the analysis of the dialogue between the human being and the machine, between evidential paradigm and psychoanalytic session. This study analyses some works belonging to literature, cinema and television that have declined these themes with different nuances: the interrogation aimed at determining the machine malfunction or deception in Liar! (1971) and Mirror Image (1972) by Isaac Asimov; the sessions carried out to establish the human or machinic nature of the investigated subject in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) by Philip K. Dick and in the film Blade Runner (1982) by Ridley Scott; the dialogues between programmers and androids of the TV series Westworld (2016–) by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Particularly relevant for the purposes of this study is Westworld, which stages the manifestation of the unconscious in the artificial intelligence. An oxymoron that unites the unconscious and its opposite, the artifice, to tell the artificial unconscious is a true representation of the impossible.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
