In this week’s “The Economist asks” podcast AnneMcElvoy meets Man Booker prize-winning novelist Ian McEwan
From “Saturday in 2005”, set amid the protests in the run-up to the Iraq war to “Solar”, dealing with scientists and climate change, he regularly plunders worldly dilemmas for material around which to weave stories.
In an interview with “The Economist Asks” podcast, he reflects on the moral quandaries of differentiating between synthetic and biological humans and his own on-off relationship with technology. “Anyone whose car has broken down and who gives it a good kick is already in an emotional relationship with a machine. Most of us know someone cleverer than us, so we’re quite well prepared to live among robots.
So would he acquire his own android to assist with the arduous process of researching and writing novels? “Absolutely. I would be very tempted and curious and that curiosity is deep in the culture,” he says. “Genesis is the story of making humans. Jason and the Argonauts has a robot called Talos. Frankenstein’s monster becomes a murderer.”
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