Culpability

The text opens with a quotation from Lorelei Shaw’s book, Silicon Souls: On the Culpability of Artificial Minds, which describes how algorithms don’t use feelings to dictate their decisions.

Noah Cassidy recounts how he met his wife, Lorelei, while she wrote her doctoral thesis on whether humans can train AI to be morally good. Noah and Lorelei married, and Noah finished law school at DePaul University while Lorelei taught at Johns Hopkins. The couple had three children, whom they raised in Bethesda, Maryland.

Noah and Lorelei operate in different spheres of professional importance, but he feels proud of his wife’s achievements. He’s content working in a mid-sized law firm while she consults as a leading expert in the field of AI ethics. Lorelei won the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship, and at the award ceremony, her younger sister, Julia, drunkenly commended Noah for feeling secure in his intellectual inferiority. Noah finds their differences proof of their love, evidenced by their healthy family. Lorelei once compared their family to an algorithm since each member inputs something different into their complex familial system. The comparison comforts Lorelei during times of chaos.