The University of Alabama in Huntsville’s (UAH) College of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences will host award-winning novelist, professor, tech reporter, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Vauhini Vara on the evening of Friday, February 2nd.

Vara’s lecture, “A.I. Dominance and a Planet in Peril: How Speculating About Our Future Illuminates Our Present,” is open to the public.

Dr. Eric Smith, of UAH’s Department of English, was instrumental in bringing Vara to Huntsville. While Vara’s work has been praised on the national stage, Smith believes that her research will hold special interest to a local audience.

“Huntsville is obviously a highly sophisticated, tech-savvy community. I have found a tremendous enthusiasm for science fiction here, and I think that many in the Huntsville area will find Vara’s work stimulating in its attempt to think through some of the most pressing dilemmas of the present, which is what great science fiction and speculative writers have always done–even in what might otherwise appear the most outwardly futurological of visions,” said Dr. Smith.

Vara has had two books published by W.W. Norton in the last two years. The Immortal King Rao, Vara’s debut novel and a work of AI dystopian fiction, was published in 2022. Last year, Vara’s This Is Salvaged: Stories, was published to much advance praise.

Vara’s personal experience as a tech reporter is foundational to her writing and research. As The Wall Street Journal’s first reporter on the Facebook beat, Vara spent the 2010s reporting on technology, politics, and business. Vara explained that she was writing The Immortal King Rao during this same period.

As time passed, Vara said she “saw how AI was infiltrating pretty much every part of society: education; media; infrastructure; criminal justice; even warfare.” The near-future that Vara had imagined for her work of fiction was becoming more true to life each day.

This widespread introduction of AI and automation has elicited conflicting reactions from policymakers, the marketplace, and the general public. Vara’s work rejects “easy” conclusions about the future of AI. Rather, it wrestles with the complicated connections between these tools and their human users.

Vara explained that she views technology, including AI, as an intrinsically morally neutral tool.

“In general, I don’t think of AI as being inherently good or inherently evil. It’s the humans behind any technology, including AI, that influence how the technology is built and deployed,” said Vara in an interview with the Business Journal.

Vara’s work, both as an experienced tech reporter and as an author, make her an ideal candidate to lead a thoughtful conversation with Huntsville scientists, business people, students, and science fiction enthusiasts on this timely issue.

Ms. Vara’s lecture will begin at 6:00 p.m. in Morton Hall Room 145, with a reception and book-signing to follow in the Morton atrium. Additional information on the event may be found here.