The Secret of the Cyborgs

The Golem is created through linguistic magic. This corresponds to the basic thesis of cybernetics, that inorganic and organic processes are driven by data flows and codes. The ambivalent aspect of the golem and cyborg motifs is that both figures develop intelligence on their own, thus recognizing and autonomously defying or overriding their programming. The threatening scenario of artificial intelligence might be old, but with the rapid developments in information technology it has gained new currency. Alex Garland’s film Ex Machina is so eerie because artificial intelligence really does manipulate and seduce us every day through autonomously activated programs.

But the cyborg also contains a promise of freedom. It is not by chance that feminist theorist Donna Haraway has seen this figure as a symbol of the rewriting of social codes. And in Marge Piercy’s science fiction novel He, She and It (1991), the android Yod appears, whose programmer Malka tells him a feminist version of the golem legend. Like his ancestor from Prague, Yod—who is also a perfect lover—is supposed to save the Jewish community. He falls in love with a human colleague and recognizes that both the redemption of the Jews of the future and his own liberation depend on the reprogramming of the codes. By wrenching free of the control of his creator and ultimately opposing him, Yod shows the other figures how rescue and liberation can be conceived: By recognizing oneself and transforming supposedly fixed realities. Piercy’s novel is thus a positive example of what Garland’s film presents from a negative perspective: The secret of artificial intelligence is not its intelligence, but the moment of liberation.

Caspar Battegay is an Ambizione research fellow of the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Lausanne. There he is working on his postdoctoral dissertation (Habilitation) on utopian thought in modern Jewish literature. His areas of interest include German-Jewish literature, literary theory, modern humanities and popular culture.

Translated by Allison Brown