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result(s) for
"Bioengineering Fiction."
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The Monster as the Precarious Other: Positioning the Posthuman in the Malayalam Film Athisayan
The concept of the posthuman, or rather the superhuman entity, is a fascinating element that several film industries have dabbled in over the years. The Malayalam film industry, too, has tried its hand in depicting posthumanism through science fiction genre films. The 2007 Malayalam film Athisayan is one such successful attempt at bringing to the Malayalee audience the idea of a superhuman entity capable of destruction. However, Athisayan portrays a superhuman, or rather a monster, with whom the audience empathises. Moreover, the film opens up the idea that the monster, despite its enhanced capabilities, will always be othered by the anthropocentric society. To put this argument into perspective, this paper will analyse the monster in Athisayan as the \"other\" -by looking into the dynamics of the monster's positionality within the film. Borrowing from Pramod K Nayar's book Posthumanism and Judith Butler's definition of the state of precarity, this paper establishes the monster, or rather the superhuman entity, as the precarious other despite its physical strength and advantage. The paper also looks into bioethics, as portrayed in the film, to analyse ethical practices involved in human experimentation.
Journal Article
Editing the Soul
Personal genome testing, gene editing for life-threatening
diseases, synthetic life: once the stuff of science fiction,
twentieth- and twenty-first-century advancements blur the lines
between scientific narrative and scientific fact. This examination
of bioengineering in popular and literary culture shows that the
influence of science on science fiction is more reciprocal than we
might expect.
Looking closely at the work of Margaret Atwood, Richard Powers,
and other authors, as well as at film, comics, and serial
television such as Orphan Black , Everett Hamner shows how
the genome age is transforming both the most commercial and the
most sophisticated stories we tell about the core of human
personhood. As sublime technologies garner public awareness beyond
the genre fiction shelves, they inspire new literary categories
like \"slipstream\" and shape new definitions of the human, the
animal, the natural, and the artificial. In turn, what we learn of
bioengineering via popular and literary culture prepares the way
for its official adoption or restriction-and for additional
representations. By imagining the connections between emergent gene
testing and editing capacities and long-standing conversations
about freedom and determinism, these stories help build a cultural
zeitgeist with a sharper, more balanced vision of predisposed
agency.
A compelling exploration of the interrelationships among
science, popular culture, and self, Editing the Soul sheds
vital light on what the genome age means to us, and what's to
come.
eBook
Creative Anticipatory Ethical Reasoning with Scenario Analysis and Design Fiction
This paper presents an experimental approach for engaging undergraduate STEM students in anticipatory ethical reasoning, or ethical reasoning applied to the analysis of potential mid- to long-term implications and outcomes of technological innovation. The authors implemented two variations of an approach that integrates three key components—scenario analysis, design fiction, and ethical frameworks—into five sections of an introductory course on the social contexts of science and technology that is required of STEM majors. The authors dub this approach
Creative Anticipatory Ethical Reasoning,
or CAER. Scenario analysis is a strategy emerging from business consulting for grounded analysis of plausible future trajectories to inform planning. Design fiction is a creative hands-on activity that blends science fiction and design prototyping to facilitate critical thinking with respect to the societal dimensions of a plausible future technology. The authors present the following findings: in each of the variations, students demonstrated significant engagement with CAER and a substantive shift in their conception of what constitutes responsible innovation and ethical conduct in science and technology. Specifically, their integration of ethical reasoning with stakeholder perspectives and scenario analysis reframed technologies, from unproblematic solutions for societal problems to socially-embedded forms of life that might diverge from designers’ intentions. This suggests that CAER could be a useful pedagogical intervention for expanding students’ ethical engagement to consider the potential unintended consequences of technological innovation.
Journal Article
An Anticipatory Approach to Ethico-Legal Implications of Future Neurotechnology
This paper provides a justificatory rationale for recommending the inclusion of imagined future use cases in neurotechnology development processes, specifically for legal and policy ends. Including detailed imaginative engagement with future applications of neurotechnology can serve to connect ethical, legal, and policy issues potentially arising from the translation of brain stimulation research to the public consumer domain. Futurist scholars have for some time recommended approaches that merge creative arts with scientific development in order to theorise possible futures toward which current trends in technology development might be steered. Taking a creative, imaginative approach like this in the neurotechnology context can help move development processes beyond considerations of device functioning, safety, and compliance with existing regulation, and into an active engagement with potential future dynamics brought about by the emergence of the neurotechnology itself. Imagined scenarios can engage with potential consumer uses of devices that might come to challenge legal or policy contexts. An anticipatory, creative approach can imagine what such uses might consist in, and what they might imply. Justifying this approach also prompts a co-responsibility perspective for policymaking in technology contexts. Overall, this furnishes a mode of neurotechnology’s emergence that can avoid crises of confidence in terms of ethico-legal issues, and promote policy responses balanced between knowledge, values, protected innovation potential, and regulatory safeguards.
Journal Article
H. P. Lovecraft, Photography, and the Transhumanist Imagination
This essay explores photography’s relationship to the transhumanist imaginary of American weird fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft; transhumanism refers to the belief that humans can evolve through technological advancements. I argue that Lovecraft’s seemingly naïve conception of photography as unerringly “objective” actually reflects his understanding of photography as a transhuman technology that can transform human consciousness. However, Lovecraft’s transhumanist vision is plagued by the recognition that the endpoint of transhumanist evolution is the annihilation of the individual body and the specific desires on which one’s sense of self is grounded—a vision Lovecraft is attracted to but finally cannot embrace.
Journal Article
Beware of fictional AI narratives
[...]AI in SF — science-fictional AI — is considered as part of a larger corpus of ‘AI narratives’ that shape the development of AI, including the research agenda, public acceptance, and political decision making1. In this sense, Ex Machina is about suppression and deception in a “male-dominated libertarian world where women are still seen as window dressing for sales booths”5 and intelligent women like Ava — not robots — are perceived as a threat. Apart from this, Bladerunner’s bioengineered replicants — although not AI in the strict sense — and also the robot labour force in I, Robot are treated de facto as slaves, which demonstrates not only the human primeval fear of enslavement and oppression in a profit-oriented economic system, but also colonial/postcolonial perspectives and the problematic of racial discrimination and Whiteness7.
Journal Article
Why Frankenstein is a Stigma Among Scientists
As one of the best known science narratives about the consequences of creating life, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818) is an enduring tale that people know and understand with an almost instinctive familiarity. It has become a myth reflecting people’s ambivalent feelings about emerging science: they are curious about science, but they are also afraid of what science can do to them. In this essay, we argue that the Frankenstein myth has evolved into a stigma attached to scientists that focalizes the public’s as well as the scientific community’s negative reactions towards certain sciences and scientific practices. This stigma produces ambivalent reactions towards scientific artifacts and it leads to negative connotations because it implies that some sciences are dangerous and harmful. We argue that understanding the Frankenstein stigma can empower scientists by helping them revisit their own biases as well as responding effectively to people’s expectations for, and attitudes towards, scientists and scientific artifacts. Debunking the Frankenstein stigma could also allow scientists to reshape their professional identities so they can better show the public what ethical and moral values guide their research enterprises.
Journal Article
The Problem is Not Monsters: The FRANKENCON Panel on Science and Ethics
In November of 2019, the University of California Santa Cruz hosted a 3-day interdisciplinary conference to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. A panel of senior researchers convened to discuss the impact of the novel on modern discussions of scientific ethics. The panel featured Nandini Bhattacharya, George Blumenthal, Michael M. Chemers, David Haussler, and Jenny Reardon. In the process, the panelists acted as the Institutional Review Board for a proposal from Victor Frankenstein himself.
Journal Article
Ethical Concerns About Human Genetic Enhancement in the Malay Science Fiction Novels
Advancements in science and technology have not only brought hope to humankind to produce disease-free offspring, but also offer possibilities to genetically enhance the next generation’s traits and capacities. Human genetic enhancement, however, raises complex ethical questions, such as to what extent should it be allowed? It has been a great challenge for humankind to develop robust ethical guidelines for human genetic enhancement that address both public concerns and needs. We believe that research about public concerns is necessary prior to developing such guidelines, yet the issues have not been thoroughly investigated in many countries, including Malaysia. Since the novel often functions as a medium for the public to express their concerns, this paper explores ethical concerns about human genetic enhancement expressed in four Malay science fiction novels namely Klon, Leksikon Ledang, Transgenesis Bisikan Rimba and Transgenik Sifar. Religion has a strong influence on the worldview of the Malays therefore some concerns such as playing God are obviously religious. Association of the negative image of scientists as well as the private research companies with the research on human genetic enhancement reflects the authors’ concerns about the main motivations for conducting such research and the extent to which such research will benefit society.
Journal Article