white mirror

Klara and the Sun is a novel written through the compound eyes of a constitutionally ingenuous artificial intelligence. I inhaled it in a few days and have been pondering its questions on love, faith, contingency, and authenticity since. I recommend it! But this post is about an aspect of the story that its author, Kazuo Ishiguro, chose not to interrogate very deeply. Why will robots and renewable energy not massively improve our quality of life? I can think of some reasons: climate-induced systems collapse, great power conflict, bioweapons, wealth concentration, various Yudkowskyian misalignment scenarios. These are plausible reasons, yet it often feels like the prevailing meta-reason underpinning it all is "because it would be inconvenient to the story that I want to tell." In Klara, this presents as a Nondescript Humanity Failure Mode. Gestured at, tastefully implied, a bullet unbitten. Authors, I get it. We need our narratives to have conflict and adversity. Material prosperity…