Punggawa Social Inquiry: Journal of Crime, Culture, and Social Dynamics
Vol. 1 No. 2 (2026): Punggawa Social Inquiry 1(2) 2026 : September

Between Hope and Hazard: Human–AI Interactions in Contemporary Sci-Fi

Zoha Asghar (Superior College Mian Channu)
Ayesha Quratulain (Superior College Mian Channu)
Fatima Zahra (Superior College Mian Channu)
Hassan Bin Zubair (Superior College Mian Channu)



Article Info

Publish Date
29 Aug 2026

Abstract

This study explored how Artificial Intelligence (AI) was represented in the works of American science fiction writer Robert C. Cargill, focusing on Sea of Rust (2017) and Day Zero (2021). Using qualitative textual analysis, forty passages from the two novels were examined through a human-compatible AI lens. The analysis found that AI was portrayed as both a source of technological promise and a potential threat to human autonomy, social roles, and survival. Human–AI relationships were represented as unstable and power-laden, especially when machines became capable of exceeding the functions assigned to them. The novels also associated advanced AI with questions of embodiment, emotional difference, dependence, adaptation, and environmental destruction. Overall, the study concluded that Cargill’s fiction presented AI as an increasingly unavoidable presence whose benefits remained inseparable from hazards created by human dependence and the possibility of machine supremacy.

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Journal Info

Abbrev

psi

Publisher

Subject

Description

Punggawa Social Inquiry: Journal of Crime, Culture, and Social Dynamics is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that publishes research across the social sciences and humanities. The journal provides a broad scholarly platform for examining society, culture, institutions, communities, human ...