Why this book:  Selected by my Science Fiction Reading Group which has decided to focus on how AI plays out in Sci Fi especially with the possibilities of AI and humanoid robots.

Summary in 4 Sentences: Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF)  who has been purchased to serve as a friend and companion to a young girl who is afflicted with a long term disease.  The book is written in the first person  through Klara’s eyes in her role as a friend and companion to a young girl, and Klara in this role becomes engaged not only in the young girl’s life, but also in the lives of those around her – her family and friends, and their close friends – not acting as a mere machine, but not as a human being either.  We experience drama that is common in the relationships people have with close friends and family in their lives, but as experienced through the perspective of a very perceptive non-human AI robot.  The novel concludes with some fundamental questions about the interface between humans and extremely intelligent and human-like AI robots. 

My Impressions: An interesting and provocative book telling a story that brings to the surface issues that our culture is now beginning to face.  As we begin to wrestle with the rapidly increasing capabilities of AI and ChatGPT, Ishiguro writes a novel in the voice of a robot who was serving as an Artificial Friend (AF) for a young girl who is struggling with an illness. The story is told entirely from the perspective of Klara, the AF, and we experience the world through “her” eyes.  It  takes a while to adjust to her AI perspective when she describes the world and the people in it, but how Klara perceives the world (definitely differently from most of us) is an important part of the story

The story begins in the store which sells Artificial Friends and as we are reading Klara’s voice, it is initially not clear who she is or what is happening.  But slowly Ishiguro gives us clues and the story starts falling into place.  The first part of the story takes place in the AF store and we get to know Klara, how she sees the world, some of the dynamics in a store which sells robotic AFs.  We get a clue regarding the title when we learn that AFs are energized by solar power and need to be recharged by sunlight.   We learn that AFs seem to have their own personalities and character qualities – each one different.  My own opinitos is that Ishiguro made them a bit too similar to people, but Klara’s personality and character ,and her detached AF perspective are an important part of the book.  Eventually Klara is selected and purchased to be a friend and companion to Josie, a young girl about 13 years old who is not well.  . 

Klara goes home with Josie and her mother, and in the next portion of the book, we get to know Josie, her mother, the housekeeper, and Josie’s boy friend Rick through Klara’s eyes.  And we begin sensing that  something uncomfortable is going on.  We learn that Josie has an undetermined long term, debilitating  illness and her mother is very stressed about that.  But we are not only getting to know Josie and her home environment, but we are also getting to know Klara, as she serves Josie as a friend and helper. Klara shares with us her observations, what she perceives is going on, without judgment.  At this point in the book, I was beginning to wonder where this was going.  But as I suspected, it was building to something more interesting, and dramatic, which I’d prefer not to reveal without a spoiler alert. 

Josie and her mother connect with an artist doing a “portrait” of Josie and in that process, we meet Josie’s father, divorced from the mother, and we get insights into their fractured relationship. Klara observes the tension between the two of them, and Josie’s reaction, and we learn of tensions in the household of Josie’s boyfriend Rick, between him and his mother.  Klara gets pulled into all of these complicated relationships as a dispassionate observer, asked for her advice and perspective. Again, her dispassionate and selfless perspective and insights are interesting and provocative, as she is drawn into very contentious and emotional interpersonal issues.  .

Klara is very intelligent, very observant, curious and thoughtful, has been programmed to behave in accordance with values of service and compassion. She is very human-like, with a couple of caveats – she doesn’t get bored, she doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or have any of the other biological functions of humans, but she can be sad,  disappointed, or pleased,  and she seems to be completely selfless.  In many way Klara is moving toward an ideal – it occurred  to me that she resembles in many ways my image of a Zen Master – compassionate, caring, constantly observing, acknowledging,  but not judging. 

But she also has some flaws in her reasoning based on an incomplete perspective and inadequate background or programming. For example, she assumed that since she gets energized by he sun, and sunlight cures whatever ails her and other AFs, she believes that these powers of the sun extend to humans as well.  She also assumed that because AFs exist to keep humans company, there is nothing more important to humans than avoiding loneliness.

In the end I see the following issues that Ishiguro novel brings up

1. Is there something unreachable, un-programable deep inside a human that can’t be replicated in a superbly competent AI Robot, well-programmed to be as human-like as possible?
2. Does a human-like AI have rights?  Klara is sometimes treated as if she were human, other times as if she were a piece of practical machinery, like a vacuum cleaner, to be ignored or discarded when convenient.
3. What does it do to a human to treat an almost-human AI as a mere servant, a mere means to one’s ends and ultimately disposable?
4. The emotional and personal issues that Klara observed in the tense relationships between Josie and her mother, between Josie’s mother and her ex husband, between Rick and Josie, between Rick and his mother, between Rick’s mother and her former lover contrast starkly with Klara’s life and perspective.  Are THESE the essence of being human – compared to the dispassionate reasonableness of Klara? 

I felt that Ishiguro made Klara a bit too human – with feelings such as fear, sadness, anticipation and excitement, pleasure and disappointment that are not currently considered part of the AI robotic portfolio.  Klara didn’t simply express and exhibit these emotions – the way Ishiguro wrote the story, in the first person from HER perspective, she actually seemed to “feel” these emotions as she expressed them to us the readers, and she seemed to be indeed “self” conscious.  In my mind those are huge steps from being a smart computer toward being near-human.   But if I’m correct in assuming that the above four issues were Ishiguro’s main points, her near-humanity helps make those points and highlights those issues. 

Klara and the Sun is not a difficult read, but it takes a bit of faith in Ishiguro to hang with it.  It moves along slowly at first, as he sets the scene, introduces us to Klara, the AI perspective and the environment in which she is serving her role. About 2/3 of the way through the book, the drama begins which was for me worth waiting for.  The ultimate drama delivered to the reader the issues I think Ishiguro wrote the book to highlight.  It will be a good discussion in my Sci Fi reading group.