klara and the sun

I read one of Kazuo Ishiguro's novels a few years ago, and it just didn't kick it for me.

Klara and the Sun did. I didn't love this book, but at least I got it. The story is solid, and looks at a potential future we may all experience at some point when robotics and artificial intelligence get to the point that they make it into the home, in much the same way that personal computers, and the internet did. Its not clear to me that Artificial Friends or AFs as Ishiguro calls them will make the leap from page to reality in our homes as quickly as the PC or the interwebs, but I do think its out there as a possibility.

In the future that Ishiguro has created, all AFs are a little bit different. This is what I'd call soft SF, so he doesn't get into why exactly they're all different, but I'm under the impression that its due to their brains. Perhaps they're manufactured in some kind of self-assembling process, which allows for variations? In any case, Klara is different than her peers: she is more observant of the subtleties expressed in the humans she interacts with. She does however remain naive about many of the basic things around her, regardless of how long she spends in the world. There is also a mysterious observational quirk Klara experiences, often when she is in stressful situations, and whether that is just part of what differentiates her from other AFs or if its typical for AFs is also a mystery.

This book was interesting, and the interactions between humans and AFs was examined in interesting ways, that reminded me a little of my post on the emotional ties humans may eventually develop for robots as they take on these important, supportive rolls in our lives.