Summary: Anastassia is joined by Professor Rae Muhlstock for a close reading of Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun — a Nobel laureate’s quiet, devastating novel narrated by an AI, and soon a major film directed by Taika Waititi, starring Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams. Dr. Rae Muhlstock is a Teaching Professor in the Writing and Critical Inquiry Program at the University at Albany (SUNY). She holds a PhD from the University at Buffalo, specializing in 20th and 21st century fiction, film, and narrative theory, and teaches a beloved course on AI, science fiction, and philosophy. Her published work spans the Classical myth of the labyrinth. She chairs the annual WCI Film Festival in Albany. This episode is part of our ongoing series “AI Through the Lens of Storytellers,” in which Anastassia and Rae discuss portrayals of AI in books and movies — from Ex Machina and Her to Data in Star Trek and After Yang — because these stories shape our expectations about AI technologies. And because art is an experiment: a way for thinkers to explore future scenarios that can’t be tested in labs. Key Takeaways: Klara is three archetypes in one. The perfect, willingly self-erasing servant; the worshipper who builds a private theology around the Sun; and the doppelgänger — a double whose purpose raises an ethical horror the novel only slowly reveals. Sacrifice may be a benchmark of life. Klara’s sacrifice is arguably the purest in the book because it comes from love without societal pressure. The most human character is the AI. Ishiguro’s humans are trapped in systems and status; it is Klara who models feeling, connection, and grace. AI in the real world is drifting toward religion. With institutions of enormous power, apostles, heretics, prophecies of doom, and millions of followers, today’s AI discourse mimics the structure of a religious movement. Keep your agency. Today’s AI mimics; it does not understand, reason, or learn from counterfactuals. Fiction is how thinkers experiment. Scientists experiment in labs; philosophers and artists experiment through stories. Chapters: 00:04 — Welcome to the storytellers series: From Ex Machina, Her, Star Trek, and After Yang to Ishiguro’s quietest, most devastating AI. 02:24 — Klara goes to Hollywood: The upcoming Taika Waititi film with Jenna Ortega and Amy Adams — and what a Nobel laureate’s AI meditation becoming a studio production says about our cultural moment. 03:19 — The plot (and why it’s the least interesting thing): Rae on Ishiguro’s “quiet science fiction,” first-person narrators, and the reader who always knows both more and less than Klara. 07:34 — Three faces of Klara: The perfect slave, the worshipper of the Sun, and the doppelgänger — archetypes, ethical horror, and a hierarchy of machines. 12:44 — Sacrifice as a sign of life: What Klara, Data, and The Creator suggest about love, agency, and the line between performing and being. 19:14 — Is AI becoming a religion?: Churches, apostles, heretics, and cults in today’s AI discourse — and Capaldi, the man who doesn’t believe in the human soul. 29:27 — Keep your agency: Why AI mimics rather than understands, the missing math of counterfactuals and causality, and the “chosen ones” narrative of AI builders. 36:42 — Fiction as an experiment — and the classroom: Checking ChatGPT’s math, cheating smart vs. cheating dumb, hidden environmental costs, and why we must always ask why. Hyperlinks: Rae Muhlstock University at Albany faculty profile LinkedIn Anastassia Lauterbach - LinkedIn First Public Reading, Romy, Roby and the Secrets of Sleep (1/3) First Public Reading, Romy, Roby and the Secrets of Sleep (2/3) First Public Reading, Romy, Roby and the Secrets of Sleep (3/3) AI Snacks with Romy and Roby @romyandroby “Leading Through Disruption” AI Edutainment The AI Imperative Book Romy & Roby Book Substack