Machine Consciousness and Pasychoanalytic Subjectivity in Klara and The Sun

Abstract

The paper examines the ways in which the concepts of machine consciousness and psychoanalysis converge in the novel Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro. The book traces Klara, a synthesized Friend who is meant to take care of children in the almost future world that is designed by genetic engineering and high-level AI. Despite a fact that Klara is a machine, she observes people and their behavior, recalls information, makes decisions and even appears to evolve into caring and moral attitude. All these lead one to question whether she can possess something as a mind or a sense of self. Based on the literature of machine consciousness, which focuses on attention, embodiment, and binding intellectual processes, Klara can be regarded as more than a tool: she synchronizes her perception, memory, imagination, and goal oriented action patterns in helping to direct her activity. Meanwhile, psychoanalytic concepts (attachment, projection, internal objects, fantasy, and mourning) are also useful to discuss how human beings and Klara create emotional connections and their inner world by way of relations. Through Klara small as well as fierce point of view, Ishiguro gives his critique of the barrier between human and non-human mind as well as the ethical consideration of a posthuman and neoliberal world in which some beings are treated as less real or expendable, human or machines. When reading the novel using machine consciousness and psychoanalysis, we realize that the subjectivity, be it human or artificial, is relying on recognition, exposure and narrative of care. The experiences of Klara do not just show us what it would feel like to become one of the sentient beings, but how we treat intelligent machines reflects our fears of identities, loss, love and where our technological control is pushed.