In Jorge Luis Borges The Library of Babel and E. Lily Yu’s In the Forests of Memory, AI is not portrayed as a typical robot or villainous machine. Instead, both works focus on information, memory, and the way technology reshapes how humans understand themselves. When read together, they suggest that AI is less about machines taking over and more about how humans deal with overwhelming amounts of data and emotional attachment.
In The Library of Babel, Borges imagines an infinite library that contains every possible combination of letters. This means it includes all true knowledge, all false knowledge, and everything in between. The people living in the library spend their lives searching for meaning, often becoming obsessed or hopeless. Borges seems to assume that simply having access to all information does not guarantee wisdom. In fact, too much information can create confusion and despair. When I read this story, I couldn’t help but think about the internet and modern AI systems. Today, we have access to more information than ever, but it is still difficult to find truth among misinformation. Borges’ vision feels like a warning about what happens when knowledge becomes endless but not necessarily understandable. On the other hand, Yu’s In the Forests of Memory presents a more emotional perspective. In the story, a grieving mother uses technology to reconstruct her deceased daughter from digital data. The AI version of the daughter can speak and respond, but it is ultimately a simulation built from past messages and online traces. Yu assumes that identity might be reducible to data, but she also questions whether that is enough to truly recreate a person. The story suggests that AI can imitate personality, but imitation is not the same as consciousness. This raises ethical questions about grief, memory, and whether technology should be used to preserve people after death.
Both works argue that AI reflects humanity rather than replacing it. Borges shows how humans project faith and desperation onto systems of information. Yu shows how humans project love and longing onto digital recreations. In both cases, the AI or system does not have its own desires; instead, it amplifies human emotions and beliefs.
From my perspective as a computer science student, these stories connect strongly to modern AI tools. Today’s AI models do not truly understand the world, they analyze patterns in large datasets and generate responses. This is like Borges’ idea of recombining letters endlessly. At the same time, people are already experimenting with AI chatbots that simulate deceased loved ones, which makes Yu’s story feel very realistic. Together, these works suggest that the real question is not whether AI can think like humans, but whether humans are ready for technology that mirrors them so closely.