The Bodily Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in Jeanette Winterson's Frankissstein and 12 Bytes
Frankissstein and 12 Bytes reflect Winterson's exploration of the bodily ethics of artificial intelligence through three key aspects: gendered embodiment of sex robots, disembodied consciousness uploading, and cross-cultural ethical connectivity. The narrative involving Ron underscores how sex-focused robots perpetuate gender disparities by reinforcing objectification, commodification, and dehumanization of intimate relationships. Winterson critiques the physical design of sex robots, contending that the hypersexualized emphasis on bodily features engenders symbolic distortions and undermines the ethical value of the human body. In contrast, Frankissstein engages with themes of consciousness uploading and digital immortality, framing transhumanism not as a technological inevitability but as a sociocultural challenge rooted in hierarchical structures. Winterson conceptualizes the body as a transitional object, emphasizing the reconfiguration of its boundaries. While she acknowledges transhumanism's optimism about the transformative potential of technology, Winterson ultimately situates love as the ethical foundation of embodied existence. Winterson also engages in a cross-cultural dialogue between the potential of artificial general intelligence and Buddhist notions of "samsara", highlighting the ethical centrality of relationality. Winterson's cultural imagination of AI reconceptualizes the body, sensory experience, and intimate relationships within an ethical framework, thereby offering critical insights into the aesthetic and moral challenges posed by generative artificial intelligence in contemporary contexts.
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