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Christopher A. Sims, Tech Anxiety: Artificial Intelligence and Ontological Awakening in Four Science Fiction Novels (McFarland, 2013, 242pp, £27.60)
Tech Anxiety is Christopher A. Sims' first monograph, and is based upon his PhD thesis and an article which appeared in Science Fiction Studies 36:1 (2009). Here he reads Martin Heidegger's philosophy alongside four science fiction novels: Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (both 1968), William Gibson's Neuromancer (1984) and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas (2004). In doing so, Sims joins the chorus of critical work currently attempting to take the pulse of humanity's relationship to technology.
In his introduction, Sims provides an overview of the hermeneutic field to which he wishes to contribute, but perhaps sets his work in too wide a context. He makes reference to posthumanism, actor-network theory, humananimal studies, and science and technological studies among others. This whistle-stop tour of complex thought systems means they only receive nods of acknowledgement rather than the extensive engagement they demand. Dealing with complex thinkers so quickly means that some of Sims' commentary is reductive to the point that the thinker's work can no longer be recognized. For example, he identifies Katherine N. Hayles as unproblematically protechnology, using a quote from an interview to support this claim. However, when one turns to Flow We Became Posthuman (1999) (the text to which Sims primarily refers), Hayles's attitude towards posthumanity and technology is more ambivalent. Sims goes on to refer to some of these thinkers in later chapters, making a sufficiently detailed introduction to their ideas even more desirable.
Sims focuses on Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology' (1949) and Discourse on Thinking ( 1966) to argue that artificial intelligences are used ambiguously in science fiction (and his four chosen novels in particular); they represent the fear that humans could grow to see themselves as no more than machines or commodities. (This limitation of perspective is known as 'enframing' in Heidegger's terminology, and a human or object experienced only for its use value is referred...