Mary Shelleys Frankenstein and Modern Day Implications Essay -- Franke

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Modern Day Implications Over two centuries ago, Mary Shelley created a gruesome tale of the horrific ramifications that result when man over steps his bounds and manipulates nature. In her classic tale, Frankenstein, Shelley weaves together the terrifying implications of a young scientist playing God and creating life, only to be haunted for the duration of his life by the monster of his own sordid creation. Reading Shelley in the context of present technologically advanced times, her tale of monstrous creation provides a very gruesome caution. For today, it is not merely a human being the sciences are lusting blindly to bring to life, as was the deranged quest of Victor Frankenstein, but rather to generate something potentially even more dangerous and horrifying with implications that could endanger the entire world and human population. Few things are more powerful than the human mind or human intelligence. This ability to think, learn and process complex thoughts has been the driving force that has allowed for the immense growth of human culture and society, without which it is doubtful we would have ever had the capacity to evolve from our basic animal existence. As fantastic as this quality may be, our intellectual growth has not always spawned ideas that produce sound and safe results. Victor Frankenstein, although a fictitious character, provides a superb example of the vast potentiality of human intelligence and the morbid destruction that it can create. For very real examples, one need only read the headlines of the newspaper to find a multitude of malicious and perverse atrocities that occur each day due to the human mind and "intelligence" gone haywire. This is why, in light of t... ...eal when we are taking the power of our minds and placing it into machines that have the ability to act in ways that exceed our own abilities. We are blinded by the seemingly beneficial qualities of this growing technology, naively becoming more and more dependent upon this very powerful creation. One need only remember the gruesome tale Shelley brought forth in Frankenstein to realize the horrendous mistake we could very well be making. Just as Victor realized too late that he had given life to a true monster, our world could suffer the same fate as we watch our "AI children" manifest into monsters that we no longer have control of. Works and Sources Cited Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein: Or The Modern Prometheus. New York: Signet Classic, 2000. ThinkQuest. Applicatio ns: Essays on the use of AI. (7 Oct. 2002). ThinkQuest. The History of AI. (7 Oct. 2002).