Ethics and Limitations Associated with Technology of the Future

Love, sex, technology, ethics, family, corruption, artificial intelligence, environmental catastrophe, and power relations all characterize the pages of He, She, and It, a mature cyberpunk novel set in futuristic America, now called Norika. In this era, the landscape has been destroyed, and a small number of citizens live under domes that protect them from the hellish environment, but not from corporate corruption. Those who don’t fit the mold of educated, productive employee, live in danger, squalor and poverty, representing the majority of Norikans. Technology and plugging into the Net, “a public utility to which communities, multis, towns and individuals subscribed” in order to communicate has made “mental warfare” a serious threat and resulted in information as “the most important commodity of the time” (58, 149, cover). Clearly, this book is overflowing with technological issues that are not just typical of the cyberpunk genre, but of all genres, for they are futuristic issues that will characterize humanity, now and forever more. 

However, there is hope in this world, for free towns still exist, where “the remarkable technology of the age has not yet been turned against the individual” (cover).

It is in one of these towns where Piercy’s story is set and the journey of Shira unfolds. Shira, a recent divorcee, has lost custody of her son to her ex-husband, who has since relocated to another planet. Thus, she decides to leave the corporate controlled town where she has been living with her family and working, and opts to return to the only place she ever called home, a Jewish base called Tikva, which houses her family, friends, and a huge scientific secret. Her grandmother Malkah, and her colleague Avram successfully and illegally created a cyborg, a robot with an intelligence capacity that exceeds that of humans. Yod is a defender, a learning machine and a hybrid, and his sole purpose is to protect the free town and Net base from invaders. Shira is offered work with this project and accepts, and her task is to socialize Yod so that he can interact with humans without arousing suspicion as to his true identity. However, despite their best efforts, Yod’s existence is discovered, and Shira and her family become ensnared in a battle with Shira’s former employers who wish to secure Yod at any cost.

Piercy focuses most of the story on Yod’s development as an individual and the evolution of his relationship with Shira, as they start out as friends and eventually become lovers. Shira is hesitant in her initial interactions with Yod, yet her understanding of Yod progresses, and she eventually realizes that Yod may not be a human genetically, but that he is indeed a person. Yod becomes her protector, her friend and her partner. Yet, a relationship with a cyborg certainly has its complications, as Shira quickly and repeatedly realizes. Piercy puts a new spin on the old love story, for Shira and Yod become inseparable, proving that love cannot be delineated or defined by technology. Nor is love simply automatic, as readers recognize, for Shira’s intense bond with Yod is in stark contrast to the nonexistent and turbulent relationships that she has with other people in her life, creating interesting situations that reveals the power and mysteries of love. Yet despite their love, or because of it, Shira also constantly faces challenges regarding Yod’s livelihood, including but not limited to his indentured service to Avram, and through these challenges, Piercy’s readers have no choice but to question the ethical obligations involved in creating technological beings with artificial intelligence. Are they alive? Are they authentic beings or simply manufactured models? Do they have the capacity to love? Piercy attempts to answer these questions, suggesting that a fine balance must be reached in the creation and integration of robots with artificial intelligence into society; a balance that must be unambiguous in defining the roles of cyborgs in society.

Although she certainly acknowledges the possibilities of technology, Piercy also dedicates a large portion of this story to examining the limitations of technology. She does this through Yod, in that she forces readers to question if there ought to be limitations to technological creations and what they should be, but also through the manner in which she presents the environment as a wasteland, with little hope for revival. Despite the technological breakthroughs of the future, the environment is essentially irreparable, and has not been restored, nor does this appear to be possible in the future. Thus, readers are left with a portrait of a world that is rapidly evolving on the technological front, yet rapidly deteriorating on the environmental front. One has to wonder, what is the point of all the technological success, if one doesn’t have a place to enjoy it? Subtly, Piercy warns her readers that an environmental catastrophe is imminent, and that this will be nothing short of tragic, a message that has become all too common to today’s citizens.

This is a book that requires adult readers who are capable and unafraid of self-reflection, for Piercy also explores other controversial issues, such as beauty, sexuality, feminism, power relations, and other issues relevant to the diffusion of information. Piercy encourages her readers to consider the future so that we are prepared to negotiate in a world resembling that presented in her book: one torn apart by power relations, poverty and technology, and subsiding on an environment destroyed by its own people. Her ultimate goal appears to be to force her readers to contemplate these questions, in order to reach a heightened understanding of the futuristic world we may one day inhabit, and our possible positions within it, that will be defined by the ethics, boundaries and limitations associated with technology, that we choose to instill and uphold. Not many authors can unite such a wide variety of issues within one story, yet Margaret Piercy does in this novel, reinforcing her position as one of the most interesting and talented cyberpunk authors. Further, she not only brings all of these issues together for exploration, but most importantly, she also compels readers to consider the relationships among and between these issues, resulting in a complete and enthralling interrogation of the ethics, boundaries and limitations of technology of the future, and of issues that have long characterized our existence: creation and destruction.