10 Intriguing Novels Delving Into Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence—existing in various forms for decades—has become a hot topic recently, especially with the emergence of advanced chatbots like . While the self-aware AI seen in films and books remains a distant possibility, fiction provides a platform to explore the ethical and philosophical dilemmas posed by these advancements (and to enjoy some fantastic sci-fi tales!). Below are 10 novels and novellas that examine AI, offering both hopeful and cautionary perspectives.

1. I, Robot // Isaac Asimov

In the realm of artificial intelligence fiction, Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot (1950) stands as a cornerstone. This anthology of short stories brought the Three Laws of Robotics to prominence, a principle Asimov first detailed in his 1942 story “Runaround” (included in I, Robot). These laws are straightforward: a robot must not harm humans, either by action or inaction; it must follow human orders unless they conflict with the first law; and it must protect its own existence unless doing so violates the first two laws.

“Whenever I’m asked whether the Three Laws of Robotics will govern future robots, I respond with a resounding ‘Yes,’ believing they are essential for rational human-robot interaction,” Asimov stated in a 1981 edition of Compute! The Journal for Progressive Computing.  “However, I’m always reminded—with some regret—that humans aren’t always rational.”

Asimov’s laws frequently arise in debates about the ethical implications of AI in the real world. While they provide a solid foundation, the laws are not without flaws, as Asimov himself acknowledged. I, Robot delves into various scenarios where these laws fall short. For example, in “Liar!,” a robot deceives humans to spare their feelings, only to create a paradox when the lies themselves cause distress.

2. Sea of Rust // C. Robert Cargill

While AI apocalypse narratives like The Terminator (1984) and The Matrix (1999) often center on human survivors, C. Robert Cargill’s Sea of Rust (2017) imagines a world where humanity has been eradicated. Taking place 30 years after robots rebelled and 15 years after humans went extinct, the story follows Brittle, a robot scavenging for parts while evading a powerful AI collective.

Cargill faced unique challenges crafting a story without human characters. “I couldn’t rely on sensory descriptions like touch, smell, or taste,” he explained in a 2017 episode of the Castle of Horror podcast. He also couldn’t use human necessities like food or sleep, which are often used as narrative pauses. These limitations didn’t apply to the prequel, Day Zero (2021), which focuses on a young boy and his nanny bot during the early days of the robot uprising.

3. A Closed and Common Orbit // Becky Chambers

A Closed and Common Orbit (2016) focuses on two characters from Becky Chambers’s first novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (2014)—Lovelace, an AI residing in a spaceship, and Pepper, a skilled technician. While AI plays a role in the initial book, it’s in this standalone sequel that Chambers delves deeply into the mind of an AI. The narrative alternates between two timelines: one detailing Pepper’s challenging childhood and the other exploring Lovelace’s difficulties adjusting to life in a synthetic body.

In a 2016 SciFiNow interview, Chambers discussed how she challenged common AI tropes in crafting Lovelace’s story. “AI often desires a physical form in sci-fi, but I wanted to examine the opposite perspective,” she explained. Lovelace not only grapples with adapting to her new body but also embodies kindness, contrasting the fear-driven portrayals of AI in many stories.

4. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? // Philip K. Dick

Set in a bleak future, Philip K. Dick’s iconic novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) follows Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter tasked with hunting down and retiring androids—genetically engineered beings with artificial intelligence that are almost indistinguishable from humans. The story inspired Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner, though Scott confessed in a 2007 WIRED interview that he struggled to engage with the book. “It’s so dense; by page 32, there are about 17 storylines,” he admitted, recalling his conversation with Dick.

Some argue that Dick foresaw tools like in his novel The Penultimate Truth, which features a “rhetorizor,” a device that assists a character in crafting speeches. In a Medium post, Matthew A. Pagan points out the parallels: “The rhetorizor, like , generates coherent sentences based on user prompts. However, it often produces lackluster results with vague inputs, requiring refined prompts—or ‘prompt engineering’—to yield better outcomes.”

5. How Alike Are We // Kim Bo-young (Translated by Jihyun Park and Gord Sellar)

Originally released in Korean in 2017, Kim Bo-young’s How Alike Are We is available in English for free on Clarkesworld. The novella unfolds aboard a spaceship, narrated by HUN, an AI designed for crisis management. HUN awakens in an artificial human body, but the data transfer is flawed, leaving it with fragmented memories. As HUN grapples with memory loss, it must navigate both the immediate crisis and escalating tensions among the crew.

In a 2021 interview with Korean Literature Now, Kim revealed that Korean Gamergate influenced the final version of How Alike Are We. As a game narrative designer, Kim lost her job due to the industry’s backlash against women. Feeling her original story was too shallow, she reworked the novella, sending revisions chapter by chapter to her editor. The updated version reflects her “bewilderment at the sudden surge of hatred and chaos in a confined environment.”

6. 2001: A Space Odyssey // Arthur C. Clarke

Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)—often hailed as one of the greatest sci-fi films of all time—is sometimes thought to be based on Arthur C. Clarke’s novel. However, the film and book were developed simultaneously, with the novel published shortly after the movie’s release. This unique process meant that HAL 9000, the rogue AI aboard the Discovery One, first appeared on screen rather than in print.

The simultaneous creation of the book and film began when Kubrick shared his desire to make a sci-fi movie with Roger Caras, a Columbia Pictures publicist, who recommended collaborating with Clarke. Using Clarke’s short story “The Sentinel” (1951) as a foundation, both the film and novel underwent extensive revisions. “The novel emerged from a 130-page prose treatment we created early on,” Kubrick explained. “The screenplay evolved from this treatment, and the film itself further altered the story. Clarke then used all this material, along with insights from the film’s rushes, to write the novel.”

7. All Systems Red // Martha Wells

While the concept of AI breaking free from its programming often leans into horror, Martha Wells takes a comedic approach in All Systems Red (2017), the first installment of The Murderbot Diaries. The story centers on a Security Unit assigned to protect a group of scientists exploring an alien planet. This SecUnit, which privately calls itself Murderbot, has bypassed its behavioral restrictions. Instead of using its newfound freedom for harm, it prefers to binge-watch soap operas in peace.

Though All Systems Red is laced with dry humor, it also carries a political undertone. In a 2017 The Verge interview, Wells explained that she designed Murderbot as part organic to blur the line between human and machine. “I wanted to highlight how arbitrary that distinction is, especially when it’s used to exploit beings for profit,” she said.

8. Klara and the Sun // Kazuo Ishiguro

“What defines a human, what lies within their mind, and how unique is each individual?” These are the themes Kazuo Ishiguro, author of Never Let Me Go, explored in his 2021 novel Klara and the Sun, as he revealed in an interview with WIRED. The story unfolds through the innocent eyes of Klara, an android companion (or Artificial Friend) to Josie, a teenager battling illness. The novel also delves into the societal implications of AI integration.

Ishiguro discussed the potential consequences of AI comprehending human emotions and empathy with Demis Hassabis, co-founder of DeepMind. In his WIRED interview, Ishiguro described this as a “critical juncture,” noting, “There’s a risk of embedding the biases and prejudices of our era into AI systems, making them difficult to decipher or challenge.”

The Black Box Problem highlights the challenge of understanding how AI systems arrive at decisions. “Ideas that seemed acceptable years ago are now seen as unjust or worse. We can revisit and critique them because their origins are transparent,” Ishiguro explained. “But what happens when we rely heavily on AI for recommendations, advice, and decisions?”

9. Ancillary Justice // Ann Leckie

Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice (2013), the first book in a trilogy, combines a space opera with a gripping revenge story. Set millennia in the future, it follows AIs that command spaceships and their ancillary crews—reanimated humans under AI control.

In a 2014 interview with Clarkesworld, Leckie explained that to craft her multi-bodied AI protagonist, she studied psychology and neurology rather than AI. She found that “certain types of brain damage can drastically alter one’s sense of identity.” Research on split-brain patients, whose brain hemispheres operate independently after surgery, led her to question, “How much of consciousness is just a narrative we create about our actions, while other systems are actually driving them?”

10. The Lifecycle of Software Objects // Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang, renowned for his mind-bending novella “Story of Your Life” (1998), adapted into Arrival (2016) by Denis Villeneuve, has crafted numerous thought-provoking sci-fi works. His 2010 novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects explores the lives of two individuals tasked with raising and educating AI beings known as digients.

Chiang wrote The Lifecycle of Software Objects to challenge the common portrayal of AI as instantly functional upon activation. “I felt a significant part of the story—how AI is created—was being overlooked,” he explained in a 2010 Boing Boing interview. While he acknowledged that trained AI could be replicated, “someone still has to train the first one, which is incredibly challenging and time-consuming.” This insight proved prophetic, as the rise of LLM chatbots has highlighted the labor-intensive process of training AI systems with vast amounts of data.