Frankenstein: What Mary Shelley's 'Swiss' creature teaches us about AI  

At a time when artificial intelligence shapes our work and recreation, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein helps us reflect on the unexpected consequences of innovation. On a “dreary night of November”, Victor Frankenstein, the Genevan scientist in one of literature's most famous novels, sees the realisation of his 'toils': a creature assembled from pieces of human and animal corpses comes to life with the amazement and disgust of its creator. As the character describes it, “I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs”. What follows is a story of technology growing beyond human control. The creature escapes, learns to speak then takes revenge on its guilt-ridden creator. Frankenstein, which Mary Shelley conceived during a stay on Lake Geneva in 1816, has for more than two centuries been a mirror that reflects anxieties about modernity and cultural change. The American scholar Mitzi Myers called it “the Swiss army knife of ...