Choose two pieces of fiction from the work below to read, watch, or listen to. Write a brief review that analyzes them both together. Your review shouldn’t merely summarize the works — in fact, it should contain very little summary at all! Instead, your review should engage with the substance of the works. There are some guiding questions below, but feel free to incorporate other kinds of analysis as you see fit.

  • What assumptions do the creators make about the world, technology, and human beings?
  • What arguments are the creators making about the relationship between people and technology?
  • What are the vision of AI presented in the texts? (Again, you’re analyzing rather than summarizing here! Don’t just say what the AI does, say what those actions mean for the abilities, nature, and ethical weight of the AI.)
  • How do these fictional AIs relate to your experiences of and/or understanding of the technologies branded as AI today?

You’re encouraged to incorporate various kinds of media into your review. In the case of a movie or tv show, that might include GIFs or clips; but you can be as creative as you’d like here: memes, infographics, mind maps, audio, or anything else that helps you convey your ideas.

Your review should be a minimum of 300 words, posted to the class website as a blog post with the tag “AI fiction.”

Note: There are a couple of tv episodes as options on this list. If you have access to them, feel free to choose them! If you don’t, you are more than welcome to choose any of the freely available fiction on this list.