In her 2021 memoir The Empathy Diaries, Sherry Turkle philosophizes the computer as an evocative machine that incites self-reflection on a series of fundamental questions pertaining to humans and our essential differences from machines in a technocratic culture where artificial intelligence (AI) is inch-by-inch being programmed to evolve as empathetic minds. The paper draws on critical perspectives from disposability theory, posthuman affect, and immaterial bodies to foreground the noncodified feature of affective experientialities that emerge as a result of the interface between humans and nonanimate beings. Through the lenses of the fictional narrative, the paper foregrounds how the concept of the social robot designed to offer empathy, care, and companionship turns into a failed project.
It discusses how literature turns into an apt tool to reflect on the limitations of the programmed machines to decode the elusiveness of the human mind that defies the one-to-one correlation between words, multiple connotations, and their underlying emotions. The novelty of the paper lies in its ability to showcase how Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun (2021) creates a rupture in the existing research and literary narrative by critiquing the theoretical underpinnings of emotional computing that optimistically foresees a future where simulated empathetic minds will be able to decode the complexities of the human emotions. The novel may be conceived to be a commentary on the emerging discourse in the domain of cognitive and emotional computing that aspires to transform the inner life and social relationships of the human community. Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Klara and the Sun (2021) philosophizes on how in the current technologically saturated culture, the gradual evolution of the empathetic humanoids has, on one hand, problematized our normative notions of cognitive and affective categories, and on the other, has triggered an order of emotional uncanniness due to our reliance on hyperreal real objects for receiving solace and companionship.
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