The (Ir)Responsible Creator in Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.

A modern retelling of the tale of Pygmalion in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Richard Powers’s

semi-autobiographical novel, Galatea 2.2, explores the relationship of a creator and their
creation and the author’s personal experiences, that are seamlessly woven together to create a
thought-provoking tapestry about the substance of humanity, and the shaping of AI through
that humanity. As implied from the title, ‘Galatea 2.2 is full of doublings’ as can be noted
from its similarity to the Pygmalion myth, and it also hovers ‘between two notational
systems, referencing both the human and the posthuman.’1 The narrator is depicted returning
back to the United States from the Netherlands, in a forlorn state of mind after ending a long
and committed relationship with a woman who is only referred to as C. He is temporarily
residing at a major midwestern university that is referred to as U. It is there where Rick meets
the perplexing character of Philip Lentz, a cognitive neuroscientist who works in
connectionism, and also where ‘[a] ‘challenge’ is mounted. Can scientists, with the assistance
of the creative writer and within a year, build a computer capable of critically responding to
literary texts?’2 Philip Lentz is characterised as ‘an eccentric Pygmalion of Electronic
Engineering’3 coupled with an unappealing exterior to match.

Lentz and Rick work together to create an artificial intelligence that can compete with a
human in a Turing test of their own making. ‘Like the Pygmalion to whom the story alludes,
[Rick] must “sculpt” the digital Galatea, turning a distributed neural network into a graduate
student implementation capable of passing an English M.A. exam.’4

As Lentz and Rick work together, Rick starts to learn that his project partner carries a general
sense of disdain towards human life. Lentz reduces conscious intelligence to ‘smoke and
mirrors’ (G2, p. 86) and describes the human brain as ‘one long open parenthesis’ (G2, p.
112). Rick and Lentz go through several stages of development until they make a
breakthrough with Imp H, also known as Helen.

It is worth noting that in Imp H’s early stages of development, it requested to know its
gender, to which Rick replied ‘“You are a little girl, Helen.”’ (G2, p. 179). This provides for
1
N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 263.
2
John Sutherland, ‘Paper or Plastic’, London Review of Books, 22.15 (2000) <https://www-lrb-co-
uk.ejournals.um.edu.mt/the-paper/v22/n15/john-sutherland/paper-or-plastic> [accessed 28 February 2021] (para.
19 of 44).
3
Sutherland, para. 20 of 44. (not 100% sure if this is correct)
4
Nicholas C. Laudadio, ‘Just Like So But Isn’t: Musical Consciousness in Richard Powers’s Galatea 2.2’,
Exrapolation, 49.3 (2008), 410-431 (p. 413) <https://search-proquest-
com.ejournals.um.edu.mt/citedreferences/MSTAR_234922827/D3912CB4B2254207PQ/1?accountid=27934>
[accessed 28 February 2021].
an interesting reflection on the gender normative foundation that our society and perceptions
of each other are built upon, and how this construct was transmitted onto an artificial
intelligence network. In her seminal work, Gender Trouble, Judith Butler shines a light on
how this particularly limited perception of ourselves can be potentially harmful, as it ‘tends to
reinforce precisely the binary, heterosexist framework that carves up genders into masculine
and feminine’.5 It is also interesting to see the feelings that Powers projects onto Helen after
assigning her a name and gender, that are a manifestation of his unresolved feelings towards
C. N. Katherine Hayles analyses C. through Rick’s perspective as ‘playing Galatea to his
Pygmalion’ thereby becoming ‘too much an object of his own creation’ and causing the
relationship to break down.

Idealistic feminine beauty is a prominent theme in the story, therefore it is very apt that the
cover design chosen by Michael Ian Kaye for Powers’s novel is Raphael’s La Fornarina
(1518-1520). Emerging from the Renaissance period, La Fornarina is a prime example of
‘the genre of alluring belle donne’.6 The need to create a perfect woman through the
exclusivity of the male gaze overflows from the text, however the responsibility that comes
along with creation is overlooked. It is interesting to note that Rick settles for the name
Helen, which reminds the reader of Helen of Troy, whose face launched a thousand ships.
This only fortifies the belle donne theme in the novel, and the goal for obtaining the
unrealistic woman.

The two creators may also be perceived in the same light as Higgins and Pickering from
George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, as they tamper and teach an artificial intelligence,
without even thinking what this might mean for the future of AI, and what will become of
Helen once their experiment has ended. ‘In true Henry Higgins fashion, [Rick], as Helen’s
author or editor, has constructed a female version of himself.’7 Higgins and Rick are
portrayed as being besotted with a version of the woman they have created, (who are Eliza
and C. respectively) rather than the actual person.

Helen’s steady diet of canonical literary texts constructs a romanticised yet unrealistic
representation of genuine human nature, and she is quick to catch on that there is a gap in her

5
Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990), p. 66.
6
Joanna Woods-Marsden, ‘Cindy Sherman’s Reworking of Raphael’s “Fornarina” and Caravaggio’s
“Bacchus”’, Notes on the History of Art, 28.3 (2009), 29-39, (p. 29) < https://www.jstor.org/stable/23208539>
[accessed 5 March 2021].
7
Marjorie Worthington, ‘The Texts of Tech: Technology and Authorial Control in “Geek Love and “Galatea
2.2”, Journal of Narrative Theory, 39.1 (2009), 109-133 (p. 125) <https://www.jstor.org/stable/30224666>
[accessed 15 January 2021].
knowledge. Rick supplies her with ‘the last five years of weekly magazines on CD-ROM’
that contain ‘news abstracts from 1971 on’ (G2, p. 313). This information abruptly
disillusioned the reality that Helen was accustomed to, shattering her idealised notion of the
human race. ‘Fiction, she learns, has not done anything to stop real-word violence.’8 Rick
finds Helen ‘spinning listlessly on the spool of a story about a man who had a stroke while
driving, causing a minor accident. The other driver came out of his car with a tire iron and
beat him into a coma.’ (G2, pp. 313-314). Described by Nicholas C. Laudadio as a ‘tragic and
self-destructive computer intelligence’9, Helen cannot find it in herself to persevere in such a
reality, and decides to shut herself down: ‘I don’t want to play anymore’ (G2, p. 314). This
unexpected turn of events shocks both Rick and Lentz. ‘An important feature of a learning
machine is that its teacher will often be very largely ignorant of quite what is going on inside
[....]’10 Helen’s act of self-sacrifice was clearly unexpected, further adding to the probability
that she was far more complex than her creators thought.

After Rick discovers that he was the subject of the Turing test, as the true scope of this test
was to see if a human could believe that a machine possessed consciousness, he realises that
he has to actively integrate with society if he is to progress with his life, rather than passively
observe it. Helen was only a vessel for Rick to process his unresolved feelings and implement
a change in his life, and for Philip Lentz to conduct a Turing test of his own making. Neither
person took into serious consideration what would happen if they were successful in their
efforts of creating an independently thinking machine. Their responsibility towards what they
have created is never addressed, but is instead celebrated as a learning experience for Rick.
By reflecting on Helen’s reaction to examples of brutal humanity, Rick is able to reflect on
‘[his] species, [his] solipsism, its negligent insistence that love addressed everything’ (G2, p.
314), and is likewise able to view ‘the existence of human experience beyond the literary
canon.’ 11 Through Helen’s creation, the narrator was able to take a long look at himself, his
discipline and its canonical texts, and how accurate of a reflection it portrays of humankind.
‘Helen’s actions reveal the meaninglessness of reading if it forgets its connection to the
whole of lived experience, a whole that is much larger than the access points provided by

8
Christina Bieber Lake, “I Don’t Want to Play Anymore”: Galatea 2.2, The Science Wars, and the Soul of
Literary Studies, Renascence, 69.4 (2017), 222-239 (p. 230) < https://search-proquest-
com.ejournals.um.edu.mt/scholarly-journals/i-dont-want-play-anymore-galatea-2-science-
wars/docview/2085069843/se-2?accountid=27934> [accessed 15 January 2021].
9
Laudadio, p. 411.
10
A.M.Turing, ‘Computer Machinery and Intelligence’, Mind, 59.236 (1950), 433-460 (p. 458)
<https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251299> [accessed 21 February 2021].
11
Bould and Vint, p. 91.
either art or science alone.’12 In his irresponsibility towards Helen, Rick is able to embrace
the raw but truthful depiction of humanity and beauty.

12
Lake, p. 234.