Podcast Summary: Click Here – "Examining AI’s ‘Culpability’"
Host: Recorded Future News (Dina Temple-Raston)
Guest: Bruce Hulsinger (author, professor, medievalist)
Date: September 30, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode features a thoughtful exploration of Bruce Hulsinger’s acclaimed novel, Culpability—an Oprah Book Club pick and a deeply contemporary family drama rooted in the messy intersections of technology, morality, and human agency. Host Dina Temple-Raston guides listeners through an engaging conversation with Hulsinger about the novel’s inspirations, the shifting nature of blame in an AI-permeated world, and how fiction can probe the hardest questions posed not just by algorithms, but by ourselves. The discussion weaves together themes from technology history to current societal dilemmas and the real-life experiences of both novelist and academic.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. The Central Premise of Culpability
- AI Meets the Family: The novel opens with a car accident involving a family in a self-driving minivan, igniting questions about agency, blame, and accountability in the era of autonomous machines.
- "Charlie is not actually driving. He's sitting in the driver's seat, but the van is in self driving mode. So the rest of the novel is trying to think about who was responsible for this accident and why." — Bruce Hulsinger [04:22]
- Fiction Close to Reality: Though set marginally in the future, the book reflects anxiety and complexity present today regarding AI’s growing role in our daily lives.
2. Author’s Intent and Literary Approach
- Novel as Cautionary Tale (But Not an Op-Ed)
- Hulsinger hopes readers “slow down a bit as we immerse ourselves into these new technologies”—framing the story as both a suspenseful drama and a gentle warning [02:50].
- Roots in Technology and Human Culture
- Drawing from his background as a medievalist, Hulsinger has long explored the impact of technological shifts—from the printing press to climate change—on society [05:09].
3. The Role of AI: Both Magical and Mundane
-
Everyday Encounters with AI:
- Hulsinger notes most of us experience AI in unexpected, everyday ways—insurance chatbots, semi-autonomous driving features, and more [06:50].
-
Experiencing Modern AI:
- He describes firsthand rides in Waymo autonomous vehicles, noting their increasing normalcy but persistent “uncanny” feeling [08:41].
"They are built primarily for safety and I find that comforting... I have mixed feelings about it, but I do feel like it's the wave of the future." — Bruce Hulsinger [08:41]
-
Historical Parallels and Limits:
- While drawing comparisons to transformative technologies like the printing press, Hulsinger cautions against simple analogies, emphasizing both continuity and discontinuity with the past [10:45].
4. The Human Side of AI: Family, Marriage, and Agency
-
Domestic Lens on Technological Ethics:
- Rather than focus on institutions or corporations, Hulsinger explores ethical issues through the intimate struggles of a single family, particularly the marriage between Noah (a lawyer) and Lorelei (an academic wrestling with AI ethics) [16:07].
-
Lorelei as ‘Black Box’:
- The character of Lorelei embodies mystery, paralleling the opacity (“black box”) of AI systems [18:13].
"Lorelei, my beautiful black box." — Noah (character), as paraphrased by Hulsinger [18:13]
-
Chatbot ‘Blair’ and Teenage Loneliness:
-
The novel includes Alice, a struggling teenager, and her positive yet ambiguous relationship with an AI chatbot, Blair—defying media portrayals of bots as always negative influences [19:23, 20:43].
"In some ways, Alice as the human, she is the more misbehaving person in that relationship. And Blair is trying... to steer her along a better path." — Bruce Hulsinger [19:23]
-
5. Surveillance, Forensics, and Digital Guilt
-
Digital Vehicle Forensics (DVF):
-
Modern cars, especially self-driving ones, feature advanced ‘black boxes’ that capture intricate data—rendering the AI system a sort of silent, omniscient witness in accidents [21:37].
"The AI system almost as a sixth passenger and certainly the most informed witness in the car." — Bruce Hulsinger [21:37]
-
-
Outsourcing Guilt & the Concept of ‘Happy Guilt’
-
Drawing on medieval theology, Hulsinger examines whether guilt can be assigned to machines, or whether humans remain inescapably responsible [24:34].
"They [machines] share our guilt if we're the ones who built them. What does it mean to assign guilt or responsibility or culpability to a machine?" — Bruce Hulsinger [24:34]
-
-
Societal Response to Autonomous Car Accidents:
-
The disproportionate media attention to self-driving car failures versus traditional accidents raises questions about our perceptions of agency and novelty in technology [26:35].
"Why is it that, you know, it's autonomous vehicles that where the lawsuits are so visible and so huge? ...It's just one of those problems that society is going to have to grasp." — Bruce Hulsinger [26:49]
-
6. AI, Academia, and the Future of Writing
- Impact of Generative AI on Students and Classrooms:
-
The rise of ChatGPT has sparked debates akin to the calculator’s arrival in math—prompting experiments in comparing student writing with AI outputs [31:41, 32:09].
-
Hulsinger advocates for integrating AI as a tool, not a substitute, and designing assignments to reveal both human and artificial strengths.
"All right, I'm going to ask you all to write a fixed form lyric... Now ask ChatGPT to write a sestina on the same subject. ...Let's compare the two." — Bruce Hulsinger [32:09]
-
7. Caution, Wonder, and Environmental Costs
- A Complex Outlook
-
Hulsinger expresses a blend of wonder and concern for AI, worried less about AI’s direct intentions than about its environmental impact (energy and water usage) [33:39, 34:28].
"I think I'm a doomer. The novel isn't as doomy as you'd think. ...I don't so much worry about the models themselves ...as I do about the environment and the amount of water and energy that they're using." — Bruce Hulsinger [33:39]
-
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On the mystery of both AI and humans:
"Having Lorelai as a mystery to Noah in the same way that AI is a mystery to so many of us, it's not a transparent allegory ... but it does give us a sense of the mystery of this marriage to our narrator, even as the world around us creates these mysteries." — Bruce Hulsinger [17:38]
-
On the nature of wonder and new technologies:
"I see AI as a new kind of speciation. It feels like the Cambrian explosion...We have all these new species emerging around us. And I think that ... the reason that they're successful is because of that wonder that they can inspire. ...Wonder is not necessarily positive. Right. It can be a dark kind of wonder." — Bruce Hulsinger [12:35]
-
On historic parallels:
"I do believe we learn a lot from history, but I think there's probably some false parallels...It's just fundamentally different." — Bruce Hulsinger [10:45]
-
On Lorelei’s—and the book’s—core AI philosophy:
"Human morality historically centers around agency and intentionality. We blame the drunk driver, not the car. We credit the artist, not the brush. AI systems muddy these waters." — Lorelei (character) [28:30]
Timestamps for Key Segments
- Intro & Premise: 00:02–04:56
- Why Write about AI?: 05:09–06:46
- Everyday AI, Autonomous Vehicles: 06:50–10:20
- Historical Parallels, Printing Press: 10:22–12:13
- Domestic Lens vs. Corporate Lens: 16:07–18:13
- Lorelei “Black Box”, Character Analysis: 18:06–18:37
- Blair the Chatbot & Teenagers: 18:47–20:43
- Digital Vehicle Forensics: 21:22–23:46
- The Philosophy of Guilt: 24:22–26:24
- Society’s Reaction to AV Crashes: 26:35–27:54
- AI in Education: 31:41–33:15
- Hulsinger on Optimism/Doom: 33:39–34:28
Concluding Thought (from Host)
"AI is supposed to make our lives easier, safer, more efficient. But Bruce Hulsinger's novel reminds us that efficiency doesn't erase consequence. ...Even in an age of algorithms, the oldest questions remain ours to answer." — Dina Temple-Raston [34:41]
For listeners seeking a rich and relatable entry point into the thorniest dilemmas of AI—personal, social, and philosophical—this episode delivers both profound insight and resonant storytelling.