Seeming Human

Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character

Nonfiction, Entertainment, Drama, Anthologies, Fiction & Literature, Literary Theory & Criticism
Cover of the book Seeming Human by Megan Ward, Ohio State University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Megan Ward ISBN: 9780814276419
Publisher: Ohio State University Press Publication: August 23, 2018
Imprint: Ohio State University Press Language: English
Author: Megan Ward
ISBN: 9780814276419
Publisher: Ohio State University Press
Publication: August 23, 2018
Imprint: Ohio State University Press
Language: English

Seeming Human: Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character offers a new theory of realist character through character’s unexpected afterlife: the intelligent machine. The book contends that mid-twentieth-century versions of artificial intelligence (AI) offer a theory of verisimilitude omitted by traditional histories of character, which often focus on the development of interiority and the shift from “flat” to “round” characters in the Victorian era. Instead, by reading character through AI, Megan Ward’s Seeming Human argues that routinization, predictability, automation, and even flatness are all features of realist characters.
 
Early artificial intelligence movements such as cybernetics, information theory, and the Turing test define ways of seeming—rather than being—human. Using these theories of verisimilitude to read Victorian novelists such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, Seeming Human argues that mechanicity has been perceived as anti-realist because it is the element that we least want to identify as human. Because AI produces human-like intelligence, it makes clear that we must actually turn to machines in order to understand what makes realist characters seem so human.
 

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Seeming Human: Artificial Intelligence and Victorian Realist Character offers a new theory of realist character through character’s unexpected afterlife: the intelligent machine. The book contends that mid-twentieth-century versions of artificial intelligence (AI) offer a theory of verisimilitude omitted by traditional histories of character, which often focus on the development of interiority and the shift from “flat” to “round” characters in the Victorian era. Instead, by reading character through AI, Megan Ward’s Seeming Human argues that routinization, predictability, automation, and even flatness are all features of realist characters.
 
Early artificial intelligence movements such as cybernetics, information theory, and the Turing test define ways of seeming—rather than being—human. Using these theories of verisimilitude to read Victorian novelists such as Elizabeth Gaskell, Margaret Oliphant, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and Henry James, Seeming Human argues that mechanicity has been perceived as anti-realist because it is the element that we least want to identify as human. Because AI produces human-like intelligence, it makes clear that we must actually turn to machines in order to understand what makes realist characters seem so human.
 

More books from Ohio State University Press

Cover of the book Divergent Trajectories by Megan Ward
Cover of the book A Passion for Specificity by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Reading Conrad by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Contemporary Advances in Theoretical and Applied Spanish Linguistic Variation by Megan Ward
Cover of the book History and Poetics in the Early Writings of William Morris, 1855–1870 by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Basics of Language for Language Learners, 2nd Edition by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Financial Basics by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Sponsored Migration by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Beyond Tordesillas by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Great American Desert by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Mama's Gun by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Hummingbirds Between the Pages by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Post-Personal Romanticism by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Varro the Agronomist by Megan Ward
Cover of the book Reality Bites by Megan Ward
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy