人工智慧與深度醫學：論石黑一雄的《克拉拉與太陽》

Artificial Intelligence and Deep Medicine: The Case of Klara and the Sun

晚近人工智慧對於人類生活影響重大，特別在醫療領域的發展更是突飛猛進，是數位健康極其重要的一環。陶普在《AI醫療》一書強調人工智慧的介入可有效改善醫病關係以及醫療體系的運作。日裔英國作家石黑一雄在近作《克拉拉與太陽》中，塑造了一個充滿同理心與同情心的人工智慧主角克拉拉，幫助垂死的小主人奇蹟般地痊癒，似乎印證了陶普的說法。本文從檢視人工智慧與醫療人文的互動開始，藉由爬梳科幻小說對於人工智慧的不同想像與再現，再以《克拉拉與太陽》為例，探討具有深度同理心的仿生人如何實踐另類深度醫學。筆者認為克拉拉透過其深度學習的能力，在小說中實踐了具有人文精神的深度治療。作為人工智慧人，她對於太陽全然的仰慕及信賴，以及對於主人全心的愛護及忠誠，與小說中自絕於世且經常見異思遷的人類角色構成鮮明對比。克拉拉的良善不但滋養了人類世界，也帶來奇蹟式的療癒效果，為石黑一雄筆下瀕臨分崩離析、充滿反烏托邦式氛圍的小說世界帶來些許希望。

In his Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again (2019), the cardiologist Eric Topol proposes that with the three Ds-democratization, digitization, and deep learning-healthcare practitioners can significantly improve their service and revolutionize healthcare systems. With the advancement of artificial intelligence or AI, technology, the application of AI in healthcare provokes continuing debates, with medical professionals divided between fear of displacement by the use of AI and enthusiastic embrace of the latest technological innovations. Starting with an overview of the interactions between AI and healthcare as well as the representations of AI in the science fiction genre, this paper analyzes Kazuo Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun (2021) from the perspective of the application of AI in medicine. It argues that with empathetic interaction with the human characters in the novel, the AI protagonist Klara enacts a special kind of deep medicine. It is Klara, the AF, or artificial friend, who can truly understand the depth of human loneliness and offer her deep empathy, thereby provide a certain kind of cure for the dystopic fictional universe. The message coming from Ishiguro, through Klara, is the importance of human interconnection and interconnectedness, which can also be regarded as Ishiguro's response to the COVID-induced social distancing and isolation.