Mother of Invention edited by Rivqa Rafael and Tansy Rayner Roberts is an anthology exploring robots and artificial intelligences created by women and non-binary people, rather than the male inventors many older stories have focussed on. It contains stories covering a wide variety of ideas and settings within this theme and is a must-read if you are interested in exploring diverse robot/AI stories.
An ambitious anthology from award-winning Australian publishing house Twelfth Planet Press, Mother of Invention will feature diverse, challenging stories about gender as it relates to the creation of artificial intelligence and robotics.
From Pygmalion and Galatea to Frankenstein, Ex Machina and Person of Interest, the fictional landscape so often frames cisgender men as the creators of artificial life, leading to the same kinds of stories being told over and over. We want to bring some genuine revolution to the way that artificial intelligence stories are told, and how they intersect with gender identity, parenthood, sexuality, war, and the future of our species. How can we interrogate the gendered assumptions around the making of robots compared with the making of babies? Can computers learn to speak in a code beyond the (gender) binary?
If necessity is the mother of invention, what exciting AI might come to exist in the hands of a more diverse range of innovators?
This was a very interesting read and I was pleased with the breadth of stories and ideas presented in
Mother of Invention. I have found some themed anthologies need to be broken up because of too much similarity in their stories, but that was not the case here. I admit I didn't quite read it straight through, but that was for other, mostly external reasons, not because I found it repetitive.
Overall, this was an excellent read. While not every story necessarily worked for me, I certainly enjoyed the majority of them. My three favourite stories were "Sexy Robot Heroes" by
Sandra McDonald, "Quantifying Trust"
by John Chu and "S’elfie"
by Justina Robson. All three took very different approaches to the theme and, really, the only similarity between them is that they contain artificial intelligences. You can read more of my thoughts on these stories and all the others below, where I have included my mini reviews of the stories that I wrote as I read them.
I would highly recommend
Mother of Invention to readers interested in exploring different ideas of robots and artificial intelligences, including as a vehicle for exploration of other themes such as gender, religion and creation. This is not
I, Robot, filled with logic-puzzle stories, but rather is filled with stories of humanity and inhumanity, and a spectrum on both sides of that divide.
~
Mother, Mother, Will You Play With Me? by Seanan McGuire — A story about an AI child learning through games and growing up. I enjoyed it, although it wasn’t what I expected (from the title and author I expected something creepier). I liked how many different ideas it explored, and also the ending.
Junkyard Kraken by DK Mok — A roboticist builds an ocean-exploration robot after failing to get funding for it. A fun story, especially thanks to the inclusion of other AI robots, such that it can be forgiving for being a bit unrealistic.
An Errant Holy Spark by Bogi Takács — A Jewish AI growing up, learning, and trying to talk to aliens. Written in the unique style I’ve come to expect from this author, the inner voice of the AI was very different to conventional (robot/AI) tropes. An interesting story and premise, with baffling aliens.
The Goose Hair of One Thousand Miles by Stephanie Lai — A story written in the form of an annotated translation of a wuxia story. The story itself is particularly bizarre, to my eye, because of the way the robots are included and thanks to the aspects the commentary focuses on. Even so, it engages with ideas of colonialism well.
The Art of Broken Things by Joanne Anderton — An eerie story based on the really interesting premise/theme of kintsugi. I liked the idea and the way different aspects of the story meshed together, but at the same time it creeped me out a bit (mostly in a good way).
Sexy Robot Heroes by Sandra McDonald — I really liked this story. It featured a trans girl mechanic, a whole barge of girl mechanics, and androids bound to serve them. It was the right mix of sentimental and sensible.
A Robot Like Me by Lee Cope — An agender AI programmer makes an AI in their image. A lovely and slightly bittersweet story about gender. I liked it.
New Berth by Elizabeth Fitzgerald — A futuristic take on regency romance that put me in mind if Austen in tone. However, I found it a bit confusing to keep track of characters and motivations and it didn’t really work for me for that reason. I expect some readers will enjoy it more than I did.
Fata Morgana by Cat Sparks — Post-apocalyptic/war-torn Australia with fighting mechs wandering around, at least one of which is intelligent. In rough conditions the mech protects the old lady that was its creator and helps a poor settlement. I enjoyed it.
Bright Shores by Rosaleen Love — A fantastical story about robots (and one woman) living in a nuclear exclusion zone. Clearly taking cues from the Fukushima tsunami disaster, I liked the premise of the robots left behind (because they are too contaminated from dealing with radioactive material), but it lost me a bit with some of the less scientific ideas.
Quantifying Trust by John Chu — A robot engineering grad student works on her design and ponders the question of trust for AI. And meets a postdoc who may or may not be an advanced AI sent from the future. I really liked this story.
Sugar Ricochets to Other Forms by Octavia Cade — A pretty weird story. On the one hand, we have a couple of women running a brothel staffed with magic automaton boys made out of sugar and cake (who often come back with parts missing in the morning). On the other hand, there is a clockwork witch made of brass I love with baby crabs lured by sugar. A compelling read, but also a strange one.
Kill Screen by EC Myers — A teenage girl makes an AI program of her recently deceased best friend. It was a bit morbid, mostly because it dealt with the question of why the friend had killed herself, but also for other reasons (spoilers). I mostly enjoyed it, but it also made me feel uncomfortable (intentionally, I assume), especially near the end.
Living Proof by Nisi Shawl — A story about an AI reproducing. The setting was quite different — a prison — and to some degree aspects of the story put me in mind of Bitch Planet. Not the overall thrust of the narrative, however, which is more about purpose from the AI perspective. Not my favourite story, but I didn’t hate it.
S’elfie by Justina Robson — A very interesting story about a world in which everyone has an AI personal assistant and what happens when they move far beyond what we currently have with Siri etc. Told from the point of view of one of these AIs, while her human is working on something in secret, I really enjoyed the incomplete knowledge of the narration.
Knitting Day by Jen White — A lovely story about knitted robots, poor working conditions and the subversion of capitalism. I enjoyed it, despite its grim setting and whimsical approach to assembly.
The Revivalist
Kaaron Warren
A creepy story (of course, look at the author) about a process that imbues discarded robots with the last words of the dead. Mostly murder victims. I liked it. And note it wasn’t heavy on the horror, more creepy/eerie.
Arguing with People on the Internet by EH Mann — An interesting story about an AI set loose arguing with people on the internet to unexpected consequences. Also features an asexual protagonist and engages with the concept of motherhood from a different angle. I quite liked it.
Rini’s God by Soumya Sundar Mukherjee — This story took an unusual approach. Not only was the protagonist AI interested in theological ideas but she has a hidden purpose. Which, in the context of the story was odd since it’s hard to program someone to do something when they have free will, so I found the creator’s motivation confusing from that point of view. Also, running an orphanage of AI humanoids was either sneaky or very strange, I haven’t decided which.
Tidefall by Meryl Stenhouse — Ow, my astronomy hurts. This was absolutely not a story to read at at astronomy conference, in between talks about merging stars oh em gee. So that coloured my reading of it considerably. Questionable astronomy aside, the plot and ideas didn’t really do it for me either. What seemed like it would be a really interesting idea ended up feeling a bit bland.
The Ghost Helmet by Lev Mirov — The AIs in this story are basically ghosts of soldiers whose memories became imprinted on their helmets. Our protagonist is a coder who accidentally caused the situation and now always wears her brother’s helmet so he can talk to and help her. I would have liked the story to spend some more time on the ethics of creating the helmet ghosts (is it really a good form of immortality?) but otherwise it wasn’t a bad read.
4.5 / 5 stars
First published: Kickstarter backers got it in July, general release September 2018
Series: No
Format read: ePub
Source: Kickstarter backer
Disclaimer: Although the editors, Rivqa and Tansy, are friends, I have endeavoured to write an impartial review
