Synopsis
My fourth novel, The Drive, is a literary take on Artificial Intelligence that explores changing definitions of love and attachment in the age of technology. The Drive has its roots in Ovid’s Pygmalion which tells the story of a sculptor who falls in love with his own creation. Fiction is a powerful means of illuminating the emergent ethical issues of AI, but the novelist’s challenge is how to weave scientific research into the story that will engage a diverse readership. This talk describes how my conversations with mathematicians and engineers at Imperial College (and beyond) helped frame and resolve the problem. The solution was inspired by Professor Holger’s research into the flight behavior of blowflies that might pave the way for a new generation of flying
robots.
Biography & publications
AIFRIC CAMPBELL was born in Dublin and lives in the UK. She spent thirteen years as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley where she became the first woman managing director on the London trading floor. Her third novel, On the Floor, was longlisted for the International Orange Prize 2012. Previous novels are The Loss Adjustor and The Semantics of Murder. Her writing has appeared the Irish Times, The Sunday Telegraph, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, ELLE, The Independent and Esquire. She holds a PhD in Critical & Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and teaches at Imperial College, London.
http://www.aifriccampbell.com