A posthuman analysis of human machine relationship in select american science fiction films

Abstract

The research A Posthuman Analysis of Human Machine Relationship in Select American Science Fiction Films attempts to foreground the emerging posthuman scenario brought about by the explosion of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in contemporary life by analysing the posthuman representations achieved by depicting AI characters and their relationship with humans in the select American science fiction films. The primary texts for the study are Stephen Spielberg s AI: Artificial Intelligence (2001), Spike Jonze s Her (2013), Mathew Leutwyler s Uncanny (2015), and Drake Doremus Zoe (2018). The research analyses the posthuman newlinerepresentations in the select films using the methodological framework of philosophical posthumanism of Francesca Ferrando with its constituent elements of post-humanism, post-anthropocentrism, and post-dualism. The term posthuman in philosophical posthumanism refers to the critique of the notion of human preserved by the Western humanistic traditions. The three constitutive elements of philosophical posthumanism, namely, post-humanism, postanthropocentrism, and post-dualism, offer a revisit of the notion of human propagated by Western humanistic traditions and offer a renewed worldview of being human in the contemporary technocentric society where nonhuman agency is being widely newlinerecognized. From an epistemological perspective, this research adds to the evolving posthuman discussions, providing a new dimension to what it means to be a human and challenging the age-old assumptions about the human condition.