What a Novel About an AI Documenting the Last Human Says About Our Real Dystopia
Jan 19, 2024
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An AI writes a book about the last human, exploring themes of AI, climate change, and our doomed future. The hosts discuss their emotional reactions, grief, and the refusal to accept climate change. They also explore the ethical implications of having children and parallel the protagonist's emotional journey with the author's own. They mention an ad-free listening feature on Amazon Music.
The novel Afterworld explores the evolving perception of AI from excitement to anxiety, while also delving into the connection between witnessing and storytelling.
The book delves into climate grief, portraying the sadness of loss while offering glimpses of beauty and hope in a post-human world.
Deep dives
Exploring the Novel Afterworld
The podcast episode discusses the new novel Afterworld by author Debbie Urbanski, which features an AI narrator named Story Worker. The novel centers around the last human on Earth, Sen, and explores themes of AI, fear, and climate change. The podcast highlights the emotional journey of reading the book, which starts with sadness and evolves into a desire to uncover the mysteries within the story. The episode also delves into the author's inspiration for writing about human extinction and how she incorporated her concerns about climate change into the novel.
AI and Changing Perspectives
The podcast delves into the evolving perception of AI since the author started writing the book in 2016. Initially, there was excitement and curiosity around AI, but it quickly turned to anxiety and fear as people realized the potential impact on various industries. However, the author remained excited about AI and explored its presence in the novel. The episode also discusses the narrative choice of the story worker AI becoming more human and highlights the connection between witnessing and storytelling in the novel.
Climate Grief and Hope
Climate grief, characterized by a sense of acceptance and acknowledgement, is explored in the novel Afterworld and discussed in the podcast. The episode highlights the sadness and heaviness of the book's themes, which revolve around the loss of species, natural landscapes, and Earth's changing climate. However, it also mentions the beauty and hope found in the descriptions of a post-human world where nature regenerates. The podcast raises questions about the ethical implications of bringing children into a climate-changed world and the complexity of motherhood in such a context.
Narrative Choices and Open-ended Endings
The podcast episode examines the narrative choices made in Afterworld, such as the intentional absence of male characters. The absence was a deliberate move to explore mother-child relationships more deeply and to challenge common tropes in post-apocalyptic fiction. The episode also touches on the ambiguity of the novel's ending, which allows for multiple interpretations. It mentions the themes of time and the emotional writing process that guided the author in creating a range of emotions and perspectives in the story.
The unreliable narrator of After World, the new novel from author Debbie Urbanski, is an AI tasked with writing a book about Sen, the last human on Earth. In this world, humanity is done. The world is moving on without us and Sen was born for a purpose: to watch the planet change itself without humanity. After World is a story about artificial intelligence, climate change, and what we can hope to leave behind for our children in a doomed future.
On today’s episode of Cyber, Emily and Matthew sit down with Urbanski to discuss all of it.