William Gibson’s Sprawl Trilogy: Connection between Humans and Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Artificial intelligence as it is envisioned in literature, reflects moral and social standards, sculpts societal hopes and fears, spurs scientific progress, and perhaps even foretells the future. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being developed by humans, including programmers through their code and authors and readers through millennia of discourse, starting with ancient automatons and continuing with contemporary concepts of AI. The question of what we are producing as AI becomes more human—and possibly superhuman—and what literature can teach us about these AI imaginaries are also topics covered in this paper. The researcher seeks to explain the connections between artificial intelligence and literature in this work by highlighting the numerous ways that machine intelligence helps the production and comprehension of narrative. This study will also look at the connection between humans and artificial intelligence in William Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy and how his cyberpunk trilogy allows readers to think about how the lines between humans and technology are blurring and how technology can both liberate and enslave people.