Victor Frankenstein’s Creature as a Literary Metaphor for Artificial Intelligence: Autonomy, Responsibility, and Technological Control in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus

Abstract

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus (1818) remains a significant literary meditation on scientific ambition, artificial creation, responsibility, and the consequences of innovation. This article examines Victor Frankenstein’s creature as a literary metaphor through which contemporary controversies surrounding artificial intelligence can be integrated. Rather than equating the creature with contemporary AI, the study identifies a limited but productive analogy between Shelley’s representation of artificial creation and contemporary concerns about learning, autonomy, control and responsibility. Using a technoethical lens, this study compares and contrasts the creature created by Mary Shelley and Artificial Intelligence. The creature’s eloquence, intellectual capacities and strength have become a causal factor in destabilising its creator and society. This article argues that the novel’s continuing relevance lies not in a literal prediction of AI, but in its exploration of what happens when a creator develops a powerful artificial entity without adequately anticipating its needs, social environment or consequences. This article provides a valuable cultural and ethical lens for examining responsible innovation, human oversight, technological control and accountability in the development and deployment of increasingly capable AI systems.