Indenture Rights for All: Challenging the Human Status Quo in Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous

摘要

Abstract Recent developments in Artificial Intelligence and biotechnology have made necessary an ethical perspective in the configuration of the posthuman. A key issue in that respect is that of robot agency. These concerns have started to be explored in science fiction, a mode of writing that has proved particularly apt for problematizing these ontological and ethical debates. This chapter examines Annalee Newitz’s robot narrative Autonomous (2017), relying on critical posthumanist thought, queer theory and Luciano and Chen’s concept of the inhuman (2015). Focusing on the figure of biobots and their association to trans and nonbinary identities, this chapter analyzes how the late capitalist system in which Autonomous is inscribed both bonds and confronts “humans” with the inhuman. Additionally, the chapter suggests that the novel challenges the definition of humanity within a system that prioritizes profit over life. Through anthropomorphization and human and bot indenture, Autonomous explores how the pursuit of equality is advocated to bring along inhumane aftereffects. Finally, this chapter states that looking beyond the human-like and examining bots’ potential as a metaphor to help us in our process of becoming posthuman may contribute to crafting a way out of advanced capitalist inhumane coding practices.