A I Before and After Frankenstein

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) is understood as one of the founding texts of modern political science fiction. It is also a source for modern ideas of artificial intelligence (AI). In this course, we will explore both the intellectual sources (Hobbes, Milton, Locke, Defoe, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft) and legacies (Lovelace, Turing) of Shelley's innovative and influential literary conception of AI in the form of Frankenstein's Creature. We will also study some of the major filmic adaptations of Frankenstein on the question of the ethics and politics of making artificial forms of life and intelligence.