IMAGES OF LITERARY DYSTOPIA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF LOTMAN’S SEMIOTICS OF CULTURE

Abstract

Dystopian images: myth or reality? How to understand the risks in the field of progress from the perspective of semiotics of culture? In the article we propose a semiotic approach to the ethics of the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence products in a literary context. The literary dystopia of the early 21st century is built on the principle of “feeling for the future” (Shklovsky) and at the same time “taking a closer look at similar events in the past” (Lotman). From the point of view of semiotics, a person in a dystopia is an image of a “thinking reed”: the ability to innovate is his evolutionary advantage. Human thought is comparable to geological force, and in this sense, Yuri Lotman’s approach continues the intellectual tradition of Vladimir Vernadsky, from the biosphere to the semiosphere. Modern dystopias by Kazuo Ishiguro show us a society of the future with the division of human groups into ‘reserve’ and ‘legitimate’. Clones and robots are proposed to be viewed not as soulless devices, but as works of art. Dystopian texts are the basis for thinking about the ethical behavior of a person of the future.