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Galatea 2.2
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Galatea 2.2 is a novel by Richard Powers. The novel is semi-autobiographical: the narrator is named Richard Powers and there is discussion of the four novels he wrote before Galatea 2.2 along with other references to his real biography. However, it is not clear how much is memoir and how much fiction.
The main narrative tells the story of Powers' return to his alma mater — referred to in the novel as simply "U.", but clearly based on the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the school Powers attended and teaches at as a professor — after he has ended a long and torrid relationship with a loving but volatile woman, referred to as "C." Once back at U., Powers meets a computer scientist named Philip Lentz. Intrigued by Lentz's overbearing personality and unorthodox theories, Powers eventually agrees to participate in an experiment involving artificial intelligence. Lentz bets his fellow scientists that he can build a computer that can produce an analysis of a literary text that is indistinguishable from one produced by a human. It is Powers' task to "teach" the machine. After going through several unsuccessful versions, Powers and Lentz produce a computer model (dubbed "Helen") that is able to communicate with something resembling human intelligence. Powers tutors the computer, first by reading it canonical works of literature, then current events, and eventually telling it the story of his own life, in the process developing a complicated relationship with the machine that certainly goes beyond scientist and experiment. The novel also consists of extensive flashbacks to Powers' relationship with C., from their first meeting at U., to their bohemian life in Boston, to their move to C.'s family's town in the Netherlands.
Like Powers' other novels, Galatea 2.2 is a densely cerebral, intellectual work, teeming with references to literature, music and science. Prominent themes in the novel include the nature of language and intelligence, the interaction between science and the humanities, the nature of academia, and the capacity and failings of human imagination.