Lecture | Frankenstein as the Archetype of AI

Ágnes Péter, Professor Emerita at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), will give a lecture in English entitled “Frankenstein as the Archetype of AI”. The lecture is organized within the framework of the PhD in British, Irish, and American Literatures in English Program and the PTE BTK Guest Professor Grant.

Date: October 15, 2026 | 12:00 p.m.

Venue: Room 418, Building E, PTE BTK

“At a time when the seemingly limitless expansion of artificial intelligence is giving rise to alarming predictions about the consequences it may have for humanity’s near future, while already posing a threat to our intellectual and emotional well-being, Mary Shelley’s novel has acquired a particular relevance. In this fantastical tale, a scientist creates an artificial human being from a crudely assembled, horrific body, whose artificial intelligence devises the most ruthless forms of revenge in an attempt to defeat its creator.

It is astonishing to consider how the nineteen-year-old Mary Shelley could have perceived, as early as the beginning of the nineteenth century, the tendencies that would contribute to a profound moral crisis two hundred years later. The novel also challenges the emphasis placed by contemporary aesthetics on the creative power of the ‘divine’ imagination. Perhaps in order to hold up a mirror to the critical values of her time, Mary Shelley, like the scientist who assembles the body from existing parts, constructs her own narrative from existing fragments—that is, from texts borrowed from other works. As a result, Frankenstein can also be seen as anticipating a new, modern literary canon.

I will discuss these aspects of the novel, as well as the translator’s ambitions, challenges and techniques, and the joy of those moments of recognition that emerge in the process of translation.”