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Richard Powers’ Playground: Oceans, AI, and the Anthropocene
Last Updated: 2026-06-01 11:31:13
Abstract
This course is about Richard Powers' novel Playground, a story of friendship and love of the ocean folded into a history of AI, ecological collapse, American racism, and French colonialism. Our focus will be novel's representation of the connections that link its human and non-human characters. What sort of intelligence is needed to trace the networks that link the land, the sea, and the Cloud?
Objective
Students are able to… ...identify and explain the importance of several novelistic techniques present in Playground. ...systematically compare forms of scientific representation with forms of literary representation, illustrating the similarities and differences with examples from the novel. ...conduct individual research on a topic related to the novel. ...formulate an original argument about the novel, propose it to the class, respond to feedback and criticism. ...experiment with, assess, and criticise generative AI tools like ChatGPT. ...debate the adoption of generative AI tools by writers, by educators, by corporations, and by governments. …examine the historical links between technological innovation and racial, gender, and social inequalities, as well as its ties to ecological catastrophe and climate change. ...discuss technology's historical contributions to democratic practice, climate science, and environmentalism and speculate about future applications of generative AI in these domains. ...play a novice-level game of Go.
Content
In an interview from 1999, the American novelist Richard Powers invites us to think of the modern novel as "the most complex artefact of networking that we have ever developed." His 2024 novel Playground seems to fit this description to a T. Playground's five human characters share the stage with numerous nonhuman actors: a small atoll in French Polynesia, a computer lab in Urbana, Illinois, Émile Gagnan's Aqua-Lung, a phosphate mining corporation, a cuttlefish, the game of Go, and the growing garbage patch in the South Pacific. But Powers's recent novel also features a new player whose historical emergence the author was unlikely to have foreseen in 1999: an AI chatbot named Profunda. The bot has powers that rival the novelist's own ability to trace the webs of determination that shape our present. Troubling the distinction between the novel's fictional world and our own, the new "connection machine" raises unsettling questions about the nature of intelligence, the value of the imagination, and the place of the novel in the age of generative AI. This course will explore these questions through lectures on the novel's form, student presentations on the histories, technologies, and ideas that contribute to its plot, and in-class discussions of its major themes and provocations. Students will be required to obtain a copy of Powers's novel. Assessment will take the form of several small assignments and an in-class final exam.
General Information
- Language
- English
- Levels
- DS , MSC
- Frequency
- Semesterly recurring
Examination
- Type
- graded semester performance
- Digital
- The examination takes place on your own device. Installation of SEB required.
Registration & Places
- Max Places
- 30
Course Components
| Type | Title | Time & Place | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| lecture | Richard Powers’ Playground: Oceans, AI, and the Anthropocene |
|
2 h weekly |
Offered In
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Wissenschaft im Kontext (Science in Perspective) (In Kursen aus dem Programm “Wissenschaft im Kontext” lernen Studierende, die MINT Fächer der ETH aus der Perspektive der Geistes-, Sozial- und Staatswissenschaften zu reflektieren. Nur die in diesem Abschnitt aufgelisteten Fächer können als "Wissenschaft im Kontext" angerechnet werden.)
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Typ A: Förderung allgemeiner Reflexionskompetenz (WiK-Kurse werden für Bachelorstudierende nach dem ersten Studienjahr sowie für alle Masterstudierende und Doktorierende empfohlen. Alle WiK-Kurse sind in Typ A gelistet. Bei den unter Typ B aufgeführten Kursen handelt es sich lediglich um Belegungsempfehlungen für bestimmte Departemente.)
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