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How Many Literary A.I. Characters and Plots Do You Know?

A green and black illustration of an open book done in the style of a computer model.
Ben Hickey

Artificial intelligence is all over the news these days, but the concept has been a staple of science fiction for decades. This week’s Lit Trivia quiz tests your knowledge of books and authors who have used A.I. and cybernetic humans as plot devices or characters in their work.

In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do some further reading.

1 of 5

The 1982 film “Blade Runner” is set in a world where synthetic human-like androids called replicants are bioengineered from organic material, often with superior strength and intelligence. Which work inspired the film?

2 of 5

In the A.I.-driven setting of “Klara and the Sun,” Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2021 novel, the robot narrator is employed as what?

3 of 5

Which novel was one of the first works to introduce the word “cyberspace” to popular culture and helped establish the literary subgenre of science fiction known as “cyberpunk” — which typically blends computer-hacker culture, A.I. and other futuristic elements into technology-driven adventures?

4 of 5

The 2019 work “Emergency Skin” follows a protagonist with a synthetic body and an A.I. brain implant sent on a special mission. The story won the 2020 Hugo Award for best novelette and was written by the same author who won the Hugo for best novel three years in a row from 2016 to 2018. Who is it?

5 of 5

In Jane Pek’s 2022 debut novel “The Verifiers,” Claudia Lin works at a detective agency that vets the human identities of people who use which type of online service?