Buddha and the Sun

If you find it, don't kill it

Today my brass mosaicked Buddha manifests as a robot. Not that he looks mechanical or unapproachable – his inner peace socks you straight between the eyes. But as much as he might symbolise enlightenment and loving kindness, he’s not huggable.

Like the bot in Kashuo Ishiguro’s Nobel prize winning ‘Klara and the Sun’, which I’ve just read. In which Klara, a solar-powered Artificial Friend with the superpower of observation, is bought as a companion for an ailing child, Josie, who is attracted to the persona she projects from the moment she sets eyes on her in a shop window.

When Josie’s mom commissions her to be drawn by an artist, eyebrows are raised as it comes out that the artist plans to make a robot to emulate her if she dies, as her sister did before her. Klara is roped in to help the artist map the finer nuances of her personality, to find out what is in her heart, what makes her tick, so that Josie’s mom can have an exact replica of her.

Sentient and caring though the android is, unlike humans, Klara sees the world in squares, boxes and chinks, which Ishiguro describes so superbly, by the end, I felt like my vision had altered disturbingly. Throughout the novel, we are shown how she seeks the sun to recharge, a sun which comes to take on added significance for Josie.

Without giving the plot away, the rider comes when we discover Klara has power of choice. And the quote on which the novel hangs, for me, is hers: “Mr Capaldi believed there was nothing special inside Josie that couldn’t be continued. He told the Mother he’d searched and searched and found nothing like that. But I believe now he was searching in the wrong place. There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Josie. It was inside those who loved her. That’s why Mr Capaldi was wrong and I wouldn’t have succeeded. So I’m glad I decided as I did.”

The future is now. On a smaller scale, I have friends who use AI friends, like Claude, on their phone, who they swear substitutes, and supersedes, a real friend, in terms of instant gratification and knowledge at least. Others use AI religiously for work, because it makes it quicker and more efficient. And with so many students using it for their academic theses, whether the humanities will be able to survive artificial intelligence remains to be seen.

For me, I’m sure I won’t be able to avoid using it in some form, and I see the benefits in so many fields, but to do words without love, is for me tantamount to having a hollow one-night stand on the page every day.

As author Ursula le Guin says, “A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight. By using words well they strengthen their souls. Story-tellers and poets spend their lives learning that skill and art of using words well. And their words make the souls of their readers stronger, brighter, deeper.”

My brass Buddha is a symbol of heart. But he doesn’t have one. And love him as a presence in my house as many do, chances of reciprocation are less than a hollow one-night stand.

(PS And no, Mr Word, I do not want to rewrite this with Copilot, all be your summary mindblowing :))