Future Perfect? Exploring Artificial Intelligence through Young Adult Literature

The science of artificial intelligence, or AI, is leaping ahead as more resources are focused on its promise. In this article, the authors discuss the ways in which we have explored significant, critical questions about AI in a college literature course through reading young adult (YA) novels. Although it's improving, AI or machine intelligence is not quite ready for prime time. Human communication is still difficult for machines, "chatbots," to understand. English teachers are well-positioned and perhaps ethically obligated to approach AI. Literature possesses the power to imagine a future and, in so doing, engage readers in questions of ethics in otherwise unthought-of scenarios. Through reading and critical discussion, English teachers offer students emotional and social questions, enabling them - teachers hope - to face their future dilemmas with intelligence, empathy, and autonomy. Using high-interest YA literature as primary texts for the class engaged the students in reading closely. And focusing on artificial intelligence enticed science-minded students to consider a topic that has been well-developed in literature over the past century. Choosing contemporary books written by authors who had researched AI also ensured that the science in the texts would be close to accurate.