THE ARCHETYPE OF THE “MAD” SCIENTIST: FROM FRANKENSTEIN TO BIOTECHNOLOGY AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Abstract

The ubiquitous figure of the “Mad Scientist,” blinded by ambition and indifferent to ethical boundaries, is one that has fascinated artists and had a cultural presence for centuries, generating a peculiar framework to understand the obsessed genius. Fascination with this figure is magnified in the nineteenth century thanks to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Two hundred years after the publication of the novel, it can be read as a warning against the quest for a form of knowledge that is “greater than nature will allow.” This thesis examines the archetype and its relevance to twenty-first-century technological advancements in such a manner that contributes to envisioning a heterotopian futuristic setting of our world. The primary technological contexts within which I rethink the literary archetype are mammal cloning and gene modification in the field of biomedical engineering, in addition to cyborgs and social-humanoid robots in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).