Kazuo Ishiguro on emotional truth in sci-fi and in our AI reality

The movie “Klara and the Sun,” in theaters now, is based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The story is set in the future and is narrated by Klara, a robotic “Artificial Friend,” whose job is to be a companion to a sick teenage girl.

In the 5 years since the release of the novel, the AI landscape has changed profoundly. Flora talks to novelist Kazuo Ishiguro about the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence, the intersection of art and science, and his hopes—and fears—for the future of this tech.

More from the interview

When I read “Klara and the Sun” shortly after its publication in 2021, its premise felt purely fictional. This is a world in which Artificial Friends are old news: Klara, deemed defective by her empathetic nature, is an outdated model whose technology has been surpassed by newer, sleeker AFs. 

The artificial intelligence landscape of 2021 feels quaint compared to now, as the film adaptation of “Klara” is being released. AI assistants like Claude and Google Gemini have been integrated into internet life, whether you want them or not. And AI safety has become the tech talking point of the year, set against the fact that AI is not empathetic to the nuances of human nature and life. 

Kazuo Ishiguro, author of “Klara and the Sun,” says the AI debate has him thinking a lot about truth—as it relates to the scientific method, but also what we feel to be true in our hearts.

AI’s emotional weight

Ishiguro says he started thinking about the spectrum of truth in earnest during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it felt like there was a standoff between science and how people were feeling.

“We were so tuned into the scientific community, wanting answers from them,” he says. “And on the other hand, we seemed to drift right to the other end of the scale about what you might loosely call ‘emotional truth.’ We wanted to believe what we wanted to believe.”

In some cases, that led to people turning to conspiracy theories about vaccines and public health officials. When people felt so strongly about something, it became truth, whether science agreed or not.

Now, Ishiguro says he sees that playing out with AI.

“Just having the presence of AI in the world seems to arouse very strong emotions, not just toward AI itself or science itself, but it seems to be doing things to our relationships with each other,” he says. In previous generations, what people thought of as fundamental truths, like religion, affected how people related to each other. It could be the basis, or the end, of a relationship, he points out.

“I think a lot of our older, fundamental beliefs are being challenged by things like AI,” he says. “And I think inevitably, perhaps almost incrementally without realizing it, we might start to relate to each other in a different way.”

Scientific truth and emotional truth

It’s hard to imagine that a Nobel laureate could feel imposter syndrome. But Ishiguro says he feels like he’s been misidentified as an oracle due to the topics he’s had the foresight to write about.

“I’m watching this rapid progress of science and technology from a seat way back in the auditorium,” he says, adding that there are certain dangers to putting too much emphasis on the opinions of an author. “Having said that, it’s also equally dangerous to just leave it to the experts, because this is something that impacts people at every level.”

Kazuo says emotional truth—what we feel to be true in our heart—can be just as important as scientific truth, especially when we’re talking about a technology that can fundamentally change the human experience.

While there’s a long history of debate over scientific truth, with peer review and the scientific method, there’s no such structure for debating emotional truth. In arguing emotional truth, it’s one person’s opinion versus another’s.

“With science, there is a more or less agreed way of actually having your arguments, even if there isn’t a clear-cut conclusion to them,” he says. “With emotional truth, it’s much messier.”

But there’s also a risk to putting too much power into emotional truth. Kazuo told us that one of his biggest concerns about AI is that it will get to a point where it can produce art, like a film or novel, that provokes an emotional reaction from people. 

“When an AI program can do that, it seems to me that it’s in a very good position to be used politically,” he says. “When you have an AI system that can really understand how best to emotionally manipulate people … and get them to do things, I think that would be a very dangerous use of AI.”

Managing the weight of judging scientific truth and emotional truth will not be easy, and Ishiguro says we’ll need a lot of public debate, not just limited to experts, as we move forward with AI.

— Kathleen Davis, Producer