Book Review:Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara and the Sun is a book about the life of an AI (Artificial Intelligence) based being told through her perspective. It is based in the near future, where gene editing for improving children’s intelligence has recently started. The growing economic inequalities we see across society today have hardened into a much more divided world. Klara is an “Artificial Friend” meant to be a companion for children to provide comfort and support. The book starts with Klara waiting to be selected by a child and using her exceptional skills of observation to learn more about the world. She eventually goes on to becoming the companion of a pre-teen girl, Josie, as Josie and her family navigate the perilous journey to early adulthood.
It was refreshing to see the world from the perspective of an AI being, how Klara tries to make sense of facts and converts them into rules to live by in society. Much in the same way as humans, but in our case we are not conscious of these processes happening. Many times we are neither aware nor able to articulate our observations or the unsaid rules of the universe we create for ourselves. As she spends more time, Klara becomes more and more human, creating her own religion, keeping secrets and sacrificing for those she loves. Klara creates a sun-centric religion for herself, without even knowing what religion is. It makes you think that even an AI, birthed from human knowledge and inputs, when left to its own devices, will find its own god.
The book asks many questions for a future world which is in the making today. In a world co-habited by humans and near-humans created by us, where will the line be drawn, how do you decide who has which rights,how do you give these AI based near humans dignity of life, respect their personhood and feelings? If each AI’s actions will be unique based on what they see and learn, does that not give them something akin to a soul?
The book has many echoes of Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go; chronic illness, early death, obsolescence after meeting the objective of birth. There is a similar triangle of affection between three youngsters, with one of them being the self aware and reflective narrator. It felt like a rewrite of Never Let Me Go for the 2020s,updating it for technology advancements.
It also has his signature style of creating a lingering dark mystery. You know from the beginning that things are not as simple as they seem. You can smell something rotten, the stench getting stronger as the book progresses.There will be difficult answers, uncovering human fallacy, prompting disgust at how humans can behave. Why is Josie sick? Why does Josie’s mother ask Klara to imitate Josie? What happened to Josie’s sister?
Given that the narrator is an AI, constantly seeing, learning and updating itself, this book is a unique example of a “tell” style of writing, since Klara literally narrates the world as she sees it and her analysis as she understands it. The books bring up many themes — how we deal with loss, how we deal with obsolescence, how we deal with uncertainty, and makes us think about how we will deal with AI beings who are as human as we are.
