The topic of the Speculative Fiction Forum’s CfP for MLA 2026 was the representation of AI in speculative fiction (SF). We received so many high-quality submissions on this timely topic that we are proposing a second panel of papers focusing on AI in very recent works of SF from around the globe.
SF has long been the genre par excellence for conceptualizing the existence of artificial intelligences and for exploring the implications of AIs for humanity. Writers and filmmakers have been representing machine intelligences for well over a century, from automata and robots to cyborgs and networked systems. However, the launch of ChatGPT is a watershed moment—there is SF written before November 30, 2022, and SF written afterward. Likewise, while there is excellent scholarship on earlier representations of AI in SF, relatively little has been published since the explosion of LLMs onto the scene.
At the same time, SF has historically been an Anglophone genre, in which Western European and US voices have predominated, and there is a dearth of scholarship on AI in global SF (Cave and Dihal 2023 and Vint 2023 begin to address this disparity). With this panel, we seek to bring recent developments in AI into the conversation and broaden the geographical focus of the discussion. The four panelists explore the ways in which AI is being incorporated in global SF today on topics ranging from sociopolitical equality; posthumanism; gender and ethics; and the interplay of historical sociocultural practices and global cybercultures.
To include as broad a geographic representation as possible, we have chosen four presenters. Each will speak for 12-13 minutes, allowing over 20 minutes for discussion. We hope to generate a lively dialogue about new trends in AI, representations of AI in multiple literary traditions, and emerging scholarship in this new era in the field of SF.
Panelists will speak in chronological order of the works they will be discussing:
Nickolas Barba Izurieta opens with “Reimagining the Future: Dystopia, Utopia, and the Democratization of Knowledge in Verde, Verde [2002].” He argues that Ecuadorian writer Julio César Vizuete depicts AI in an unusually positive light, as a democratizing force expanding access to knowledge in a region with uneven technology distribution. Drawing on utopian theorists and Feenberg’s Democratizing Technology, he demonstrates how Vizuete uses AI to represent the liberating potential of technology against oligarchic control.
In his paper “Thinking Without Consciousness: AI and the Intelligence Spectrum in Peter Watts’ Firefall Duology,” Bibin K. Antony discusses the Canadian author’s two novels Blindsight (2006) and Echopraxia (2014). Although written before the recent launch of the LLMs, the books depict intelligence as an adaptive, networked process, and Antony reconsiders the two works in light of contemporary debates on machine learning, black-box AI, and brain-computer interfaces, situating Firefall within broader discussions of AI and posthumanism.
Yimin Xu discusses recent works of Chinese SF in “Gender, AI, and Morality: A Comparative Analysis of The Wandering Earth 2 [film, 2023] and Exorcism [2018].” Xu examines the use of AI to explore gender representations and ethical concerns in very recent Chinese science fiction by/based on work by well-known authors Liu Cixin and Han Song. She argues that both works use sexualized language to depict AI-human conflicts, highlighting themes of utilitarianism and ecological crisis, individual identity and humanity’s overdependence on technology.
In “Untouchable Algorithms: The Spectre of Caste in Speculative Fiction,” Aindrila Choudhury looks at “how caste is rewritten in technofutures as a structure that persists, mutates, re-emerges” in current Indian SF: in Samit Basu’s novel Chosen Spirits (2020) and in Sahej Rahal’s short story “Hallucination Stream” (2024) and AI installation Anahad (2023). She seeks “to map caste as a force that does not simply persist in the face of modernity’s caste-blind promises, but actively anticipates and participates in the thrust of digital modernity.”
These four scholars represent a wide diversity of voices. They are in graduate programs in departments of English, Hispanic Language and Literature, and China Studies at four institutions in four time zones and three countries. Conversant in at least eight languages among them, they will discuss works from four countries that are written/spoken in at least three languages.
All the panelists are in the early stages of their careers and therefore have not yet published significant scholarship in the field of Speculative Fiction; nevertheless, all are promising young scholars engaged in research on a topic of exponentially escalating global import, and they deserve to be showcased at the MLA's annual meeting.