Kay Li - Böcker

​This project is the first to explore how Bernard Shaw intersects constructively with automata, robots and artificial intelligence (AI). Shaw was born in the golden age of the automaton. His Bible on the Life Force and Creative Evolution, Back to Methuselah, was written when Karel and Josef Čapek coined the word “robot.” Shaw’s life ran in parallel with the rise of AI, and the big names in AI were his contemporaries. Moreover, empirical analyses of Shavian texts and images using AI uncovers possibilities for new interpretations, demonstrating how future renditions of his works may make use of these advanced technologies to broaden Shaw’s audience, readership and scholarship.

His Bible on the Life Force and Creative Evolution, Back to Methuselah, was written when Karel and Josef Capek coined the word “robot.” Shaw’s life ran in parallel with the rise of AI, and the big names in AI were his contemporaries.

This book is the first to use artificial intelligence, especially large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, to examine how Bernard Shaw’s plays illuminate contemporary debates about the ethical use of AI. It analyzes major works including Back to Methuselah, Major Barbara, Arms and the Man, Man and Superman, Pygmalion, and Heartbreak House, situating them within the vast literary, cultural, and philosophical contexts of Shaw’s time. Through AI-assisted readings, the study explores Shavian advocacies such as power, love, the Life Force and Creative Evolution, the emergence of the Superman, and the need for governance. The book also evaluates the strengths and risks of LLMs, including hallucinations, bias, potential autonomy, user over-dependence, and the lack of accountability in AI systems. It demonstrates how Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback and careful prompt engineering can help mitigate these concerns. Strikingly, Shaw’s warnings to humanity resonate closely with today’s urgent questions about responsible AI.

This book explores the cultural bridges connecting George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, such as Charles Dickens and Arthur Miller, to China. Analyzing readings, adaptations, and connections of Shaw in China through the lens of Chinese culture, Li details the negotiations between the focused and culturally specific standpoints of eastern and western culture while also investigating the simultaneously diffused, multi-focal, and comprehensive perspectives that create strategic moments that favor cross-cultural readings.With sources ranging from Shaw's connections with his contemporaries in China to contemporary Chinese films and interpretations of Shaw in the digital space, Li relates the global impact of not only what Chinese lenses can reveal about Shaw's world, but how intercultural and interdisciplinary readings can shed new light on familiar and obscure works alike.