“Does It think? Does It enjoy? Taking the problem of artificial intelligence as a problem that has been in a way always-already inherent to psychoanalytic inquiry Isabel Millar accomplishes a most powerful and productive shift of perspective on both psychoanalysis and AI. Her work takes us on a fascinating journey across a vivid conceptual and figural landscape, and provides an excellent proof that powerful, captivating theory is all about asking the right kind of questions. The Psychoanalysis of Artificial Intelligence is both extremely timely and timeless in the way it constructs and tackles its object.”
(Professor Alenka Zupančič, The European Graduate School and Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Author of What is Sex? and Ethics of the Real, Kant and Lacan)
“Boldly drawing on a vast range of academic disciplines orchestrated by an enviable psychoanalytic erudition and an original treatmentof so-called “sexbots” as a central object for contemporary speculative and social investigation, Millar’s book asks a series of seminal and long-overdue questions, which are here to stay. How should we approach the allegedly forthcoming advent of the “singularity” in terms of sexuality and sexuation? Does sexual reproduction have a future? What new forms of enjoyment, if any, might Artificial Intelligence enable us to think and experience? Or is it rather the case that androids secretly already have wet dreams about the human-all-too-human absence of the sexual relationship?”
(Dr Lorenzo Chiesa, Newcastle University, UK. Author of Subjectivity and Otherness and
The Not-Two)
“People tend to respond to artificial intelligence with either fear or love. Isabel Millar proposes a third way: to psychoanalyze artificial intelligence and the persistent investment in it. In a stunning work of expansive intellectual power, Millar shifts the fundamental question concerning artificial intelligence to the terrain of enjoyment. After Millar’s book, the question “Does it enjoy?” should be the starting point for any engagement with artificial intelligence. It is simply an epochal book for understanding this engagement.”
(Professor Todd McGowan, Department of English, University of Vermont, USA. Author of
Emancipation after Hegel and The Real Gaze, Film Theory after Lacan)
About the Author
Isabel Millar is a philosopher and psychoanalytic theorist. She is currently Research Fellow at the Centre for Critical Thought, University of Kent, UK.
