Mind — Artificial Intelligence Available to Purchase

The nature of the speculation emerging from transhumanists, effective altruists, Bay Area techno-libertarians, and artificial intelligence existential risk makes plain that there is a stark divide, if not an outright contrast, between the infrastructural or logistic dimension of AI and its commonplace fictionalization or personification as oedipal beast. This is the case, this entry argues, because the fantasy of parthenogenetic autarky, which the fictionalization of AI is predicated on, is far older than the technology. In 1909, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti published Mafarka: The Futurist, in which a parthenogenetic fantasy––what he calls the fertilization of the male spirit––is fictionalized as a strange family drama, involving incest, sacrifice, and surrogacy. This entry examines the sexual economy of AI and its attendant boundary disputes, from Mafarka to the basilisk.