Artificial Intelligence, Memory, and Human Form: A Sociological Reading of Stanislav Lem's Solaris

The relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, robots, and cyborgs has long attracted the attention of science fiction literature. Utopian or dystopian fictions about the future—such as machines behaving like humans or artificial intelligence developing the ability to empathize—can help social scientists understand societies undergoing digital transformation. As Steven Shaviro emphasizes, although such fictions may seem to contradict scientific methods of understanding the world, there are strong resonances between them; both involve processes of speculative extrapolation. Therefore, establishing and testing scientific hypotheses and creating fiction are not entirely distinct from each other. Philosophers and social scientists have been crafting utopian or dystopian fictions as they think and write about society for centuries.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence or robots through Stanislav Lem's Solaris. Although the entity in Lem's novel is neither an artificial intelligence nor a robot, the extraterrestrial life form in the story materializes and takes on a human form. This new life form behaves much like artificial intelligence, feeding on memories and attempting to establish a connection between its memory and current information. Physically, it is stronger than a human, resembling a robot or cyborg. For this reason, Lem's work may be useful for understanding the future relationships between humans and artificial intelligence or robots. The utopian and dystopian elements in Solaris can thus be used as a methodological tool to understand future human-AI/robot relationships, enabling a form of science fiction sociology. In this regard, the discussion will draw on the views of Herbert Marcuse, Fredric Jameson, and Ruth Levitas.