Dynamic Subspace

Category: Research

  • Program for The Ninth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium on SF, Artificial Intelligence, and Generative AI

    Date and Location

    The Ninth Annual City Tech Science Fiction Symposium will take place in the City Tech Academic Building at 285 Jay Street in downtown Brooklyn, New York on Tuesday, December 10, 2024 from 9:00am to 5:00pm in Room A-105.

    The event is free and open to the public. Pre-registration for this in-person event is not required. Participants and attendees who are not affiliated with the college will need to sign-in at the security desk before entering and walking down the hallway to the right to room A-105.

    Program

    9:00AM Opening Remarks

    Jason Ellis and Justin F. Vázquez-Poritz

    9:15AM Break

    9:20AM Paper Session 1

    Moderator: Wanett Clyde

    Jason Ellis, “A History of Generative AI in SF”

    Jacob Adler, “The End Zone: A.I. as a Commentary on the Human Condition in 17776”

    Martijn J. Loos, “A Plea for Theory: The Relationship Between Real-World AI and its Representation in Science Fiction”

    10:40AM Break

    10:50AM Paper Session 2

    Moderator: Kel Karpinski

    Virginia L. Conn, “The Tyranny of Neutrality in AI 2041”

    Nathan Lamarche, “Monotheistic Ethics in Caprica: The Consequences of AI Development on Queer Futurity”

    Adam McLain, “Computational Poetics: Franny Choi’s Soft Science and the Dialogues to Come”

    12:10PM Lunch

    1:10PM Student Panel

    Moderators: Jill Belli and Vivian Zuluaga Papp

    Lucas Felipe

    Christine Retirado

    Malik Joseph

    Journey Ford

    2:00PM Break

    2:10PM Asimov’s/Analog Writers’ Panel

    Moderator: Emily Hockaday

    Sarah Pinsker

    Mercurio D. Rivera

    Sakinah Hoefler

    Matthew Kressel

    3:50PM Break

    4:00PM Keynote Address

    Moderator: Leigh Gold

    Marleen S. Barr, “Science Fiction/AI/Feminism: A Temporal Progression”

    Participants

    Jacob Adler has been part of the CUNY system for a number of years now, most recently as the Cataloging and Metadata Librarian for the Lloyd Sealy Library at the John Jay College for Criminal Justice. In September 2024, he contributed to Space, the Feminist Frontier, a scholarly book publication about feminist topics related to the Star Trek franchise. Since 2022 he has been involved with providing educational material about artificial intelligence, including creating academic research guides and delivering presentations in CUNY and throughout the Westchester Library System. Other than AI, his interests include media history, fiction writing, and tabletop role-playing games.

    Marleen S. Barr is known for her pioneering work in feminist science fiction scholarship and has recently retired from teaching English at the City University of New York. She has won the Science Fiction Research Association Award for Lifetime Contribution to Science Fiction Scholarship. Barr is the author of Alien to Femininity: Speculative Fiction and Feminist Theory, Lost in Space: Probing Feminist Science Fiction and Beyond, Feminist Fabulation: Space/Postmodern Fiction, and Genre Fission: A New Discourse Practice for Cultural Studies. Barr has edited many science fiction critical anthologies and co-edited the science fiction issue of PMLA. She is the author of the novels Oy Pioneer! and Oy Feminist Planets: A Fake Memoir.   Her When Trump Changed: The Feminist Science Fiction Justice League Quashes the Orange Outrage Pussy Grabber is the first single authored Trump short story collection. It is followed by This Former President: Science Fiction as Retrospective Retrorocket Jettisons Trumpism. Her latest critical anthology is Jewish Women Writers Create Science Fiction: Gender, Temporality–and Yentas.

    Jill Belli is Associate Professor of English at New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where she happily teaches science fiction and utopian studies often. She’s working on long-standing projects on well-being & happiness in education and writing & revising in speculative fiction. Newer interests include nature writing, healing & illness, tarot & astrology as storytelling / intuitive literacy, and grief. Learn more about Jill and her interdisciplinary research and teaching: jillbelli.org.

    Wanett Clyde is the Collections Management Librarian at CUNY’s New York City College of Technology, where in addition to managing the library’s collection she oversees the university archives. Her research seeks to explore the intersection of Black history and fashion history, drawing out under credited African-American contributors, their critical innovations and accomplishments, and other meaningful connections in the overlapping research spheres.

    Virginia L. Conn is a Teaching Assistant Professor at Stevens Institute of Technology. She researches depictions of the “new socialist human” in socialist science fiction and how those depictions guided policy decisions in Mao-era China, Soviet Russia, and East Germany. She is currently working on her book manuscript, which offers a literary-material account of the relationship between socialist literary policies and the concurrent sociopolitical and technological drive to create the “new human” in daily life. She is also the managing editor of the Science Fiction Research Association Review.

    Jason W. Ellis is an Associate Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY, where he coordinates the City Tech Science Fiction Collection. He published the OER Yet Another Science Fiction Textbook, and co-edited The Postnational Fantasy: Postcolonialism, Cosmopolitics and Science Fiction (McFarland, 2011) and a special issue on Star Wars: The Force Awakens of New American Notes Online, and talked with Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson about the relationship between SF and society on StarTalk Radio.

    Lucas Felipe is a student at City Polytechnic High School of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology.

    Journey Ford is an Entertainment Technology student at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

    Leigh Dara Gold is a Doctoral Lecturer in the English Department at City Tech. She currently teaches composition, fiction, drama, poetry, and several other literature classes.  Her doctoral work, completed at NYU in 2011, explored mourning in the work of Else Lasker-Schüler using several theoretical approaches, among them feminist, trauma, and poetic theories.  Since then she has deepened her focus on interdisciplinary work such as writing about Ursula K Le Guin, Mary Shelley and Le Guin’s intersections, Eastern philosophies and ethics in Le Guin’s work, trauma in women writers of science fiction, including Octavia Butler, and the role of the body in poetry.  Leigh recently published an essay about Judith Merril in Jewish Women Science Fiction Writers Create Future Females: Gender, Temporality—and Yentas, edited by Marleen S. Barr (Lexington Books, 2024).

    Emily Hockaday is the senior managing editor of Analog Science Fiction and Fact and Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. She coedited the horror anthology Terror at the Crossroads with Jackie Sherbow and is the editor of the speculative poetry anthology Heartbeat of the Universe. Hockaday is the author of Naming the Ghost, Blood Music, and In a Body. She has received grants from the De Groot Foundation, Café Royal Cultural Foundation, NYFA City Artist Corps, and Queens Council on the Arts. You can find her at www.emilyhockaday.com.

    Sakinah Hoefler is a fiction writer, poet, and playwright. She’s a proud recipient of the 2023 Analog Award for Emerging Black Voices. Her work has been published both domestically and internationally, and her plays have been produced by places such as Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. A former chemical engineer for the United States Department of Defense, she currently teaches writing at Princeton University. She resides in Newark, NJ with her wonderful husband and adorable son.

    Malik Joseph is a student at City Polytechnic High School of Engineering, Architecture, and Technology.

    Kel R. Karpinski (they/he) is the IT/ILL Librarian and Associate Professor at the New York City College of Technology, CUNY. Their research focuses on mid-century queer films and novels as they relate to sailors and hustlers in Times Square and how these texts map queer desire onto the city. Kel is also a zine maker and a NY Queer Zine Fair organizer.

    Matthew Kressel is a multiple Nebula and World Fantasy Award nominated author and coder. His many works of short fiction have appeared in Analog, Asimov’s, Lightspeed, Clarkesworld, Tor.com/Reactor, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and many other publications and anthologies, including multiple Year’s Bests. Eighteen of his stories will be included in his debut collection, Histories Within Us, coming from Senses Five Press in February. His far-future novel Space Trucker Jess is coming in 2025 from Fairwood Press. And his Mars-based novella The Rainseekers is forthcoming from Tordotcom in early 2026. Alongside Ellen Datlow, he runs the Fantastic Fiction at KGB reading series in Manhattan. And he is the creator of the Moksha submissions system, used by many of the largest fiction publishers today.

    Nathan Lamarche is a Master of Arts in English student at the University of Alberta. Their current studies focus on writing centres and composition theory, Indigenous and queer fiction storytelling, and the relational impacts of technology on our perspectives of the self, with a keen interest on the development of AI technology through the anthropomorphisation of social-oriented technologies and services and their impacts on society, the parallel between Generative AI and monotheistics ethics, and AI’s disproportionate impact on cultural and queer marginalisation. They have received several awards and scholarships, including the Sarah Nettie Christie Scholarship, the Belcourt Brosseau Métis Awards, and The Kerry Wood Memorial Award in Arts.

    Vivian Li designed this year’s event poster. She is a graphic designer specializing in branding and visual storytelling, but more than anything she’s just another human who wants to make the world a brighter and more connected place through thoughtful design. She believes that in a world increasingly driven by technology and AI, design has the power to bring a vital human touch to the exciting digital landscape. Her mission is to craft visuals that resonate emotionally, adding warmth and personality to fast-paced modern experiences. Connect with her at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vivian-l-8a177b19b/.

    Martijn J. Loos is a Dutch PhD candidate at New York University’s department Comparative Literature. He has a RMA in Comparative Literary Studies from Utrecht University and has taught at University College Tilburg. He works at the intersection of science fiction and philosophy, with a special emphasis on the relationship between the (political) real and the science-fictional. He has published on, amongst others, H. P. Lovecraft, Octavia E. Butler, Ray Bradbury, and Ted Chiang. He enjoys Belgian beers and anything involving laser guns.

    Adam McLain is a graduate student in the English department and law student at the School of Law at the University of Connecticut. He studies dystopian literature, legal theory, and sexual justice. They received bachelor’s in English from Brigham Young University, a master’s of theological studies from Harvard University, and a master’s in English from University of Connecticut.

    Vivian Zuluaga Papp is a Doctoral Lecturer in the English Department here at City Tech. She has a BA in English from Columbia University, an MA in British and American Literature from Hunter College, and her Ph.D. is in Eighteenth-Century British Literature from Fordham University. Previously, she taught classes in Satire, Women in Science Fiction, Afrofuturism, and Imaginary Travel Narratives while a Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow at Fordham University. Her research interest is in the field of visual epistemology in seventeenth-century scientific texts and early forms of the novel. She is the author of a short science fiction story “Catbot’s in the Cradle,” which was published in Behind the Yellow Wallpaper: New Tales of Madness, and has a chapter coming out in a Science Studies anthology on real and imagined visual manifestations of the “unseeable” in Daniel Defoe’s A Journal of the Plague Year and Robert Boyle’s New Experiments Physico-Mechanicall, Touching the Spring of the Air and Its Effects.

    Sarah Pinkser is the author of over sixty works of short fiction, one novella, two novels, and two collections. Her work has won four Nebula Awards (Best Novel, A Song For A New Day; Best Novelette, “Our Lady of the Open Road,” Best Novelette, “Two Truths And A Lie,” Best Short Story, “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather,”), two Hugo Awards (“Two Truths And a Lie” and “Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather”), the Philip K Dick Award, the Locus Award, the Eugie Foster Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Award, and been nominated for numerous Nebula, Hugo, Locus, and World Fantasy Awards. Her fiction has been translated into almost a dozen languages and published in magazines including Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Uncanny and in many anthologies and year’s bests. Sarah’s first collection, the Philip K Dick Award winning Sooner or Later Everything Falls Into the Sea: Stories, was published by Small Beer Press in 2019, and her first novel, A Song For A New Day, was published by Penguin/Random House/Berkley in  2019. Her latest book is We Are Satellites, published in 2021. Her second collection, Lost Places, was published by Small Beer Press in  2023 and was followed by the Tordotcom novella Haunt Sweet Home in September 2024. She is also a singer/songwriter with four albums on various independent labels (the third with her rock band, the Stalking Horses). She lives in Baltimore, Maryland and can be found online at sarahpinsker.com and x.com/sarahpinsker.

    Christine Retirado is a Communication Design student at New York City College of Technology, CUNY.

    Mercurio D. Rivera is a writer whose short fiction has won readers’ awards for Asimov’s and Interzone magazines and has appeared in markets such as The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, i09, Nature, Black Static, and various anthologies, podcasts, and “best of” collections. His novel Wergen: The Alien Love War (published by NewCon Press), which was nominated for the Arthur C. Clarke Award, tells stories of unrequited love set against the backdrop of humanity’s complicated relationship with an enigmatic alien species. And his Asimov’s story “Beyond the Tattered Veil of Stars,” was podcast by Dust Studios, and features Gillian Jacobs (of Community) and Justin Kirk (of Weeds), and is available anywhere you listen to podcasts.

    Justin F. Vázquez-Poritz is the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at New York College of Technology, CUNY.

  • The Poet Versus Generative AI

    an anthropomorphic cat wearing 18th century garb in front of a background of rolling hills and trees
    Image created with Stable Diffusion.

    Brian Porter and Edouard Machery’s “AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably,” which appears in the open-access journal Scientific Reports, is a fascinating study about how human-made and Generative AI-made poetry is rated by non-expert humans. Interestingly, the study participants rated more of the Generative Ai-made poetry as more “human” than the poems actually written by humans, which included works by Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Samuel Butler, Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, T.S. Eliot, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and Dorothea Lasky. While this quantitative approach provides some interesting talking points about the products of Generative AI, it seems like it might be saying more about the participants than the computer-generated poems. What might the results look like from experts, literature graduate students, and undergraduate students who had taken a class on poetry? What might be revealed by analyzing the AI-penned poems in relation to the work by the respective poets, considering that the prompt was very generic?

  • Generative AI and Pedagogy Bibliography Updates

    an anthropomorphic cat professor is reading books in a library
    Image created with Stable Diffusion.

    Over the weekend, I added a pile of books to the Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Pedagogy Bibliography and Resource List.

    Also, I added some must-read open-access articles and online guides:

  • Finnish Community Roots in McKinnon, Georgia

    About a third of the way between Hortense and Jesup in Georgia is the Wayne County community of McKinnon, whose history includes the arrival of Finnish immigrants who wanted to develop this land after World War I. Their arrival was initiated by a group of Finns in Brooklyn, New York who advertised and convinced other Finns in the northeast USA to invest and move to this part of southeast Georgia.

    Above is a picture of the old school house, and below are some street signs representing the community’s Finnish roots.

    Sauna St, and E and W Kallio St

    Looking back at my photos, I realize now that I forgot to take a photo of Finland Street, because that was where I was standing!

    Looking East and West on US 301 from the Center of McKinnon

  • Using a Local Large Language Model to Perform Literary Analysis of “Chrome and Punishment,” a Story Written by Generative AI

    skeleton wearing a professor's robe standing in front of a chalkboard covered in equations
    Skeleton professor. Image created with Stable Diffusion.

    Taking my “Chrome and Punishment” experiment a step further, I tasked the LLM to analyze the completed story with the following prompt that included the text of the story indicated by the ellipsis:

    You are an English professor and cyberpunk science fiction expert with over 20 years of experience as a scholar and teacher. Write a critical essay for a prestigious journal such as Extrapolation or Science-Fiction Studies about the story below titled, "Chrome and Punishment." Establish what the story is about, discuss how successful it is as a work of science fiction and as a example of the subgenre known as cyberpunk, and its qualities and deficiencies.  As part of your analysis, consider how it relates to Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel *Crime and Punishment*. You are a critic who knows science fiction and cyberpunk literature better than anyone, so it is okay to be harsh but fair in your observations. Backup your points with evidence drawn from the story. You are free to make an honest appraisal based on your expertise applied to your reading of the story. 

[...]

Write your essay analyzing "Chrome and Punishment" below.

    Using the same model and settings as I used in the previous post, this is the response that it gave (I had to do an additional iteration to ask it to give its essay a title):

    Neon Nightmares and Cyberpunk Redemption in a World of Chromatic Consequences: A Critical Analysis of ‘Chrome and Punishment’ as a 21st Century Adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment

    In the cyberpunk noir “Chrome and Punishment,” we witness a narrative that is both a homage to the classic tale of crime and morality, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and a scathing critique of a society obsessed with power, wealth, and the blurring of humanity’s boundaries with technology. This story, with its vivid depiction of a dystopian city and complex characters, serves as a poignant example of the cyberpunk subgenre’s ability to explore deep existential and social questions.

    The plot is intricate and fast-paced, following Rodion Romanovich “Raskol” Raskolnikov, a disgraced cybersecurity prodigy, as he embarks on a dangerous heist to free his sister Dasha from the clutches of the corporate elite and their digital brothels. The setting of New Eden, a neon-infused, sprawling cityscape of chrome, cybernetic enhancements, and omnipresent surveillance, is a vibrant backdrop for the unfolding narrative, effectively capturing the oppressive atmosphere of the original Dostoyevsky novel.

    Raskol’s character is a modern Raskolnikov, a man whose moral compass is skewed by the desperation of his circumstances and his belief in the superiority of his own intellect. The cybernetic enhancements and digital world of “Chrome and Punishment” serve as metaphors for the internal turmoil of the protagonist, whose own identity and humanity become increasingly fragmented as the story progresses.

    The relationship between Raskol and his sister Dasha parallels the bond between Raskolnikov and his sister Dunya in Dostoyevsky’s work. Both brothers seek to save their sisters from a life of misery and exploitation, driven by a sense of familial duty and love, yet ultimately entangling themselves in a web of crime and deceit.

    The cyberpunk elements are integrated seamlessly into the narrative, enhancing the story without overpowering it. The digital underworld, the chrome-plated agents, and the omnipresence of SynthCorp all serve to underscore the theme of powerlessness and the struggle for autonomy in a society where human beings have become commodities.

    However, the story does stumble at times. The heavy-handed symbolism, such as the recurring imagery of chrome, can feel forced. Moreover, the character development of some of the supporting characters, particularly Svidrigailov and Sonya, could have been more nuanced. Svidrigailov’s villainy is almost cartoonish, lacking the depth and humanity of the best cyberpunk antagonists. Sonya, while a compelling figure, is often reduced to a symbol of purity and innocence, a stark contrast to the corrupted world around her. The potential for a more complex portrayal of her character, especially her resilience in the face of adversity, goes unexplored.

    The narrative structure, with its interwoven plotlines and flashbacks, can be disorienting. This is a deliberate choice, mirroring the chaotic digital landscape of New Eden, but it may be too disjointed for some readers, making it difficult to fully engage with the story’s emotional and thematic depths.

    The dialogue, while often engaging and reflective of the cyberpunk vernacular, sometimes veers into cliché and fails to capture the poetic intensity of Dostoyevsky’s original. Nonetheless, the author’s command of language and the rhythm of their prose effectively convey the tension and desperation that drive the characters.

    “Chrome and Punishment” is most successful when it delves into the psychological and moral implications of a life lived in a world where the self is as malleable as a digital avatar. The themes of guilt, redemption, and the quest for meaning resonate strongly, particularly in the scenes set within the digital prison, where Raskol is forced to confront the reality of his actions.

    The story’s climax, with Raskol’s decision to turn himself in and face the consequences of his crimes, echoes the climax of “Crime and Punishment.” Yet, unlike Dostoyevsky’s Raskolnikov, who is ultimately redeemed through confession and suffering, “Chrome and Punishment’s” Raskol finds his atonement through his commitment to protecting the digital underclasses and fighting for a more just world. This divergence from the source material is a refreshing update that underscores the cyberpunk theme of the individual’s power to effect change within a corrupt system.

    The conclusion, with Raskol and Sonya standing together, ready to face an uncertain future filled with hope and purpose, is a powerful one, leaving the reader with a sense of optimism amidst the bleakness of New Eden. It is in this final scene that the story truly excels, encapsulating the essence of cyberpunk: the struggle against overwhelming odds to preserve humanity in a world that seeks to erase it.

    In summary, “Chrome and Punishment” is a compelling and often successful work of cyberpunk fiction that uses its futuristic setting to explore timeless themes of crime, punishment, and the quest for redemption. Its vivid imagery, complex protagonist, and thought-provoking questions about the nature of existence in a digital world make it a valuable addition to the genre. Despite its flaws, the story’s emotional resonance and thematic richness make it a worthwhile read for fans of cyberpunk and those intrigued by the darker side of human nature.