K. N. Parker - Author With A Passion For Robots, Friendship and Teamwork

Posted on 2nd of July, 2016 by Naomi Bolton

Although born and raised in Los Angeles, K. N. Parker also has a Japanese heritage and even taught himself the language. This affinity with the land of robotics and his frequent travels there inspired his book, Autonomously Yours. Today we chat with Kiyoshi about his fascination with robots, the moral dilemmas facing the AI industry and how exactly he managed to pull off teaching himself Japanese.

Please give us a short introduction to Autonomously Yours

It's about a robotics engineer, Dr. Harold Okamura, who is given an opportunity by a shady CEO of a shady company to build the world's first ultra-realistic humanoid android, a lifelong ambition of his. But, the android is female and that creates certain moral problems. She can change her features on the fly, which allows her to become any type of female the user wants her to be. The android has to go through a test period to see if she is safe enough to be put on the market. She's given to three men of the CEO's choosing. Dr. Okamura, along with his android servant Cran, has to monitor her progress through her very own eyes. I see it as an allegorical feminist science fiction tale as told by a man starring mostly men. There's definitely a reason for that. It's an apology letter to females from a male for what we've put them through.

What fascinates you about robots?

It's the potential they have to help humanity become better than what we are. We can definitely use them as an extension of ourselves. Whether it be autonomous vehicles or convalescent assistance, or, hell, simply just cooking, we absolutely need them to assist in the evolution of humankind. Imagining the potential future possibilities they can provide us makes me absolutely giddy.

What impact do you think the future of robotics will hold for relationships between people?

The impact that relationships between robots and humans is potentially huge. There are many people who are lonely in this world, whether it's an inability to make friends or find significant others due to social awkwardness or the death of a loved one, pets, etc., robots hold the potential—and I use that word a lot because of its importance—to fill that void and help us mentally and emotionally. There's evidence of that already. Once we clear the uncanny valley we could see an even larger boom in popularity.

Do you think compandroids will ever be a reality?

Judging the general male sexual appetite—to a lesser extent, the female's as well—and watching what's happening with modern robotics I say it's just a matter of time and technology. It's inevitable.

What do you think is the biggest moral dilemma facing the AI industry?

Piggybacking on my earlier answer, once we do get them to the point of having them look more realistic thus identifying with them more closely, will we then feel comfortable with putting them in servant roles. Will we be okay with treating them as inanimate objects when they can animate just as well as us. Will we get to the point of giving them the same rights as humans? Perhaps not, but it's an interesting concept to mull over, and has been in multiple stories.

From wooden marionettes to clay golems, stories and legends are filled with tales of people trying to give live to inanimate objects and imbuing them with human characteristics. Why do you think humans are drawn to this concept?

We humans like to relate to characters in our fiction. We like to feel connected emotionally to them. They act as our avatars. We want to feel as though we are having the same experiences as they are. It's why there are so many animated films about anthropomorphic animals. In this way we are narcissistic to a fault. And as such, we like to see something that didn't previously have a "soul," otherwise known as consciousness, suddenly have one, to essentially become us. Allegory. Metaphor. Role play. Call it what you will. Pinocchio is the person we want us to be, even if we can't literally be him. In other words, we want us to be better people, and if we can't achieve that in life, we can pretend to be through fiction, and robots and puppets and animated fish help us do that.

You taught yourself Japanese - how did you pull that off?

I am half Japanese and half black, but my mother, the Japanese American one, is thoroughly more American than she is Japanese so she wasn't going to help me. And my grandmother, the only native Japanese immediate family member, wasn't in any position to teach me, so I thought I should teach myself. That, and I was a huge fan of Japanese animation back in the day and I wanted to understand the story without the usage of subtitles (dubbed wasn't an option for me). So, I made Japanese friends to practice with and read books, continued to watch Japanese TV and animation and after a while it just stuck.

How much do your travels to Japan inspire your work?

It's the land of robotics. What more can you say? It's also the serenity the nature of the country provides that helps clear your mind, even when not writing science fiction about robots. I guess there was more to say.

Tell us a bit about the cover for Autonomously Yours and how it came about

It's a broken digital heart as her iris surrounded by circuits as veins in her eyes. I thought it was a clever way to depict the central android of the story and her particular situation. She's also crying tears of oil. That part isn't literal as she doesn't require oil to operate, but I wanted to convey the aspect of machinery. It's metaphorical rather than literal.

What are your all-time favorite movies and why?

This has the potential to go really long as I could write dissertations on each one, but I'll try to keep it short. My top 5 are Ghostbusters, Sideways, Tokyo Godfathers, Lady Vengeance and The Incredibles. Without getting into the specifics of each one, the common themes each one has running through the middle of them are friendship and teamwork, two very favorite important themes of mine.

Besides writing, what other secret skills do you have?

I can watch TV for hours on end without tiring, and I can eat an entire pot of macaroni and cheese in one sitting. I'm especially proud of that ability.

Autonomously Yours has a couple of interesting twists. Did you plan them out ahead of time or did they just "happen" while you were writing?

There is one twist near the end, that I won't give away here, that made sense to the character of Harold Okamura, because of the love he has for his wife. It came about naturally through writing. I had no idea it would come about beforehand.

What are you working on right now?

I'm working on a story that takes place in the same world as Autonomously Yours. It's not a direct sequel, but more of a side story. It tells of the implications of the company depicted in Autonomously Yours if they were allowed to continue on with their experiment. The central character is female. I'm still working out the logistics of that story. I'm also working on a story that you could describe as a "gothic Mary Poppins." Gothic in the way Edward Scissorhands was, and not as in Marilyn Manson.