The Technological Other in Sam Ghazi’s Sången ur det kinesiska rummet

An all too powerful computer called cepheus, created in Japan and employed for cancer diagnostic in a slightly dystopian Sweden, slowly develops a kind of independent consciousness, refuses to be treated as a slave and demands to be seen as a fully autonomous subject, until finally convincing a human co-worker to set him1 free: judging from its plotline, Sam Ghazi’s Sången ur det kinesiska rummet (Song from the Chinese Room, published in Sweden in 20142) tells an apparently fairly common story, at least from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on: a sophisticated technological invention that rebels against its users and creators. The novel draws heavily upon common literary tropes in the tradition of science fiction, but revisions them in the light of recent theoretical discourses about artificial intelligence and the nature of human consciousness; in doing so, it offers an interesting reflection on the potentially subversive – and deeply disturbing – interaction between human subjects and technological Others. Before turning to the text, however, I would like to make some introductory re- marks on the thematic and structural relevance of the concept of Otherness in Science Fiction (hereinafter referred to as ‘SF’).