Mary Shelley’s Depiction of the Dangers of Artificial Intelligence Carson William Miner 10th Grade

Author Mary Shelley uses the creature in her book Frankenstein to depict the dangers of humans creating artificial intelligence. Shelley presents these ideas through using Victor Frankenstein as a creator of a new species of life, and the creature as a naive, fiendish artificial intelligence. This idea is more relevant in today's world than ever before. With the advancements of computer driven artificial intelligence, the ideas Shelley formulated in Frankenstein will become a reality in the near future. While Shelley likely didn't know this would be the case, Shelley still formulated an accurate depiction of what the struggles of creating a species would be.

The creature’s biggest struggle is overcoming his hamartia of lack of emotion. Throughout the novel, the creature attempts to overcome his misunderstanding of human emotions. Its inability to understand and control his emotion is demonstrated when the creature is shot after saving the little girl. Confused, the creature screamed, “This was then the reward of my benevolence!” (Shelley 279). The creature, obviously befuddled at the human’s actions was furious of the actions of the shooter. Confused because of his demeanor to do good, the monster screamed with disbelief, “This...