“Playground” By Richard Powers
Shaken by an AI at Play
“Were we born to play? Were we born to frolic?” These lines come from an imayō song collected in the Ryōjin Hishō, an anthology compiled by the retired Emperor Go-Shirakawa toward the end of the Heian period. Hearing the voices of children at play, the speaker finds even their own body stirred by them. As I read this novel, I found myself thinking about the essence of “play” posed by a song written some eight hundred years ago.
The story is set on Makatea, an island in French Polynesia in the South Pacific. Once exploited for its phosphate deposits, the island now becomes the site of a tech billionaire’s plan to build a floating city. There is Ina, an artist who lives with the poet Rafi; Todd, Rafi’s old friend and the creator of the social media giant Playground; and Evelyne, a marine biologist who has devoted her life to the ocean. Their four lives intertwine as the narrative moves back and forth between past and present.
The author portrays play as something intrinsic to life itself. The dances of fish beneath the surface of the sea are almost indistinguishable from play. Dolphins play; even insects play. Play is a source of discovery and creation, and it is by no means the exclusive privilege of human beings.
From the earliest days of computing, engineers, too, have been driven by a pure sense of play—the desire to create worlds. That impulse is connected to the scientist’s curiosity about unraveling the mysteries of the ocean. Yet play also has its darker side. Just as children’s games can sometimes be cruel, humanity’s “play” can pollute the oceans, destroy ecosystems, and create divisions. Even so, Powers never relinquishes the perspective that human beings, too, are simply one form of life at play within this vast playground.
Toward the end of the novel, the reader realizes that what we have been hearing is not the “voice of a child at play,” but the voice of “an AI at play.” And when I realized that I myself had been moved by that voice, I was reminded of another line from the Ryōjin Hishō: “even my own body is stirred.” When we are moved by a story woven by AI, what exactly are we encountering? The novel leaves that question open and places it in the reader’s hands.
A book for thinking about what technology means in the Anthropocene.
Translated by Yoshihiko Kihara. (¥4,950)
