"Dropped down halfway" The Flawed Designer and the Failure of the Posthuman in Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2
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2021
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Haverford College. Department of English
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eng
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Haverford users only
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Abstract
This essay explores the role of the humanist designer in the creation of AI in an academic and social posthuman setting. Set on the cusp of the 21st century, Powers's pseudo-autobiographical Galatea 2.2 reimagines the myth of "Pygmalion" during a time when technology has evolved what it means to have a body and be human. Powers's narrator becomes responsible for creating and instructing an AI, and in failing to do so, is presented as a flawed designer who is unable to reconcile the humanist structures that he lives by with the emerging posthuman environment. In his inability to break out of these structures, he does not properly recognize the hybridized existence of the AI he creates, leading to its isolation and eventual failure. I argue that through the representation of the failed humanist designer, the novel allows the reader to think more critically about the possible applications of the posthuman both to literary productions and academic institutions, as well as the possible capacities for human relationships and knowledge creation.