AI and Human Relationships In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara And The Sun

Abstract

AI and human relationships have been a hot topic of the decade now. With time AI and human relationships are being stronger and this can be said as humans are using AI a lot in their daily lives and AI is now an important part of our daily lives. And this paper is going to deal with the complex relations between humans and AI robot in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun.

The book is focussed on an Artificial Friend (AF), named Klara; she has been designed to provide companionship to a child. Thus, through this the book provides a point to question the boundaries which are drawn between humans and machines. Using Klara, Kazuo Ishiguro has tried to humanise AI by showing that they can also have feelings like humans including empathy, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. And this blurs the difference between humans and artificial intelligence.

In this paper we will discuss how the Klara and the Sun challenges notions of humanity, empathy, and moral obligations. We will make use of post humanist theory and psychology to analyse how Ishiguro has humanised AI and review anthropocentrism to question the boundaries of connection, consciousness and emotional labour. The study explores the future ethical requirements surrounding intelligent machines and shows how AI, like Klara, can both satisfy and undermine human needs for attachment and purpose.