• Interesting book about humanity, set from perspective of a robot.
  • Other people have analyzed this book’s morals in much more eloquent ways, so all I have to add is that it’s interesting how the Artificial Friends in this book generate their own ideologies and religion. Klara’s misunderstanding of the power of the Sun is a very interesting and recurring theme.
  • First, Klara’s reverence for the Sun clearly manifested “risky emergent behavior” - she planned the destruction of public infrastructure because she believed it followed her own instructions. Seems like a clear precursor to other AI stories where robots “following their programming” do terrible and horrible things.
  • Josie won the lottery for lifting (a procedure that makes children much smarter, at the cost of possibly killing them), but I can only assume that it was coincidence - obviously from the point of view of Klara, the Sun answered her prayers and saved Josie, but from “our” human perspective the Sun isn’t able to do that.
    • What other things do we believe in, as humans, that a higher or more advanced civilization would lightly dismiss?
    • On the flip side - what makes Klara’s beliefs wrong if it worked? Klara believes that the Sun cured Josie. She prayed for help and the Sun did so. That makes no sense to me, so I go “oh it was just a coincidence she got better.” But maybe there’s a metaphor that I miss with that train of thought.
  • Very interesting twist halfway through that was properly foreshadowed right from the beginning - nicely done!
    • Klara was bought to replace Josie in case the real Josie died.
    • This is why Mother was so interested in Klara’s observation skills, and wanted Klara to “walk like Josie” right at the start, to see if Klara was capable of imitating Josie well.
    • If Klara can imitate Josie completely, to the point where her own mother can buy into the lie, what’s so special about humanity? Not that much, I guess. We place higher importance on human experiences not because they are intrinsically more valuable but because we share the experience of being human.
  • The slow fade at the end - clearly AFs don’t last forever, and their memories and physical functions deteriorate over time until they die. Mother and Josie clearly care a lot for Klara, but It seems to me to be more of a pet-like way - letting their pet “slow fade” with dignity, rather than be dissected for science.
    • Everyone knew the slow fade was going to happen. Why would Mother want Klara to replace Josie if she knew even Klara wouldn’t last 10-15 years? Wouldn’t she have to go through that death again? I guess she was just desperate for temporary comfort.