From Analee Newitz’s Autonomous, I learned to take issues from society and make them issues in my fictional society, explore the futility of human life, and how to create a fictional ‘being’ and make it real. In Autonomous, Newitz applies issues like identity, slavery, and medical care that she brought from our own society. The main character engineers drugs that are more readily available to people in need, because basic medical needs are overpriced and difficult to obtain. Drug companies care more about making money than helping people: "Over a century ago, scientists first began to argue that the patent system and scientific data should be opened up. Back then, it was popular for conservatives to claim that putting geneng into the hands of the public would result in mega-viruses or total species collapse. Open data would be the gateway to a runaway synthetic biology apocalypse. But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property." Another of the main characters, Paladin, is a robot who struggles with identity. Because they were seen as property by their former master, essentially acting as a slave, they have a hard time seeing who they are, their gender, and how they fit into the human community--as a whole but also intimately. “People assigned genders based on behaviors and work roles, often ignoring anatomy. Gender was a form of social recognition.” A lot of these problems are mirrored in our current day society and I learned that exploring the same drawbacks in real society can help flesh out a fictional world as well as how the characters deal with them. Something I (and probably a lot of others) struggle with is mortality. Newitz explores the idea of death and the futility of life through science and robots, as after humans eventually die, what will be left are the highly intelligent robots they left behind. She also delves into the idea of eternal life through putting people into artificial intelligence and robots: “That’s the question that humans always ask—always, always. They want to scoop out the brains of their dead friends, plop them inside a nice new carapace, and presto! Resurrection!” I learned that using a common fear (one that I would imagine has at least crossed Newitz’ mind) helps the reader to have an emotional connection to the novel, as the idea of immortality or resurrection might seem tempting to them and also helps to push the plot forward with characters’ needs. The final thing I took from Autonomous was developing new life forms and making them realistic. Paladin’s robotic yet relatable nature exemplifies the way Newitz introduces a concept the reader is unfamiliar with, explains it, and then makes this new concept feel like second nature. I think incorporating a robot is interesting because the time period the book is set in has advanced enough technology for the machines to be lifelike but also have flaws. Newitz goes really into depth about how Paladin and other robots work, and the way she did it kept me engaged and interested, wanting to know more.
In Autonomous, Newitz applies issues like identity, slavery, and medical care that she brought from our own society. The main character engineers drugs that are more readily available to people in need, because basic medical needs are overpriced and difficult to obtain. Drug companies care more about making money than helping people: "Over a century ago, scientists first began to argue that the patent system and scientific data should be opened up. Back then, it was popular for conservatives to claim that putting geneng into the hands of the public would result in mega-viruses or total species collapse. Open data would be the gateway to a runaway synthetic biology apocalypse. But now we know there has been no one great disaster—only the slow-motion disaster of capitalism converting every living thing and idea into property." Another of the main characters, Paladin, is a robot who struggles with identity. Because they were seen as property by their former master, essentially acting as a slave, they have a hard time seeing who they are, their gender, and how they fit into the human community--as a whole but also intimately. “People assigned genders based on behaviors and work roles, often ignoring anatomy. Gender was a form of social recognition.” A lot of these problems are mirrored in our current day society and I learned that exploring the same drawbacks in real society can help flesh out a fictional world as well as how the characters deal with them.
Something I (and probably a lot of others) struggle with is mortality. Newitz explores the idea of death and the futility of life through science and robots, as after humans eventually die, what will be left are the highly intelligent robots they left behind. She also delves into the idea of eternal life through putting people into artificial intelligence and robots: “That’s the question that humans always ask—always, always. They want to scoop out the brains of their dead friends, plop them inside a nice new carapace, and presto! Resurrection!” I learned that using a common fear (one that I would imagine has at least crossed Newitz’ mind) helps the reader to have an emotional connection to the novel, as the idea of immortality or resurrection might seem tempting to them and also helps to push the plot forward with characters’ needs.
The final thing I took from Autonomous was developing new life forms and making them realistic. Paladin’s robotic yet relatable nature exemplifies the way Newitz introduces a concept the reader is unfamiliar with, explains it, and then makes this new concept feel like second nature. I think incorporating a robot is interesting because the time period the book is set in has advanced enough technology for the machines to be lifelike but also have flaws. Newitz goes really into depth about how Paladin and other robots work, and the way she did it kept me engaged and interested, wanting to know more.