William Gibson’s novel titled Neuromancer was one of the first novels published within a new subgenre of science fiction called cyberpunk. This literary movement began in the 1980s and sought to combine things of high tech nature with things of pop culture, and additionally sought to break down the separation between organic and artificial content. Cyberpunk in itself is beneath the heading of Hard Science Fiction, or Hard Core Science Fiction. The reason behind the name “Hard Science Fiction” is that this subgenre relies heavily on technology or biology to tell a story. Cyberpunk stories typically have settings in which there is a “system” at work, dominating the lives of the “ordinary” people/humans. The cyber aspect of the term cyberpunk refers to how humans themselves become integrated into the Machine through procedures like brain implants, prosthetic limbs, etc. The punk aspect of this term is comprised by people who live on the edge of society, or in other words, people who don’t fit into the “regular” standards that society expects from us as humans. Examples of these individuals include criminals, outcasts, visionaries, or those who want freedom just to have freedom.
This heavy technology presence introduced by Gibson as part of his choice to write a cyberpunk novel interested me in that humans are starting to become part of this Machine in more ways than one. While scientific advancements such as prosthetic limbs have caused people to reflect on this idea of blurred lines between humans and robots, humans are also becoming more robotic in the sense that interpersonal interactions are gradually becoming more and more rare. The presence of technology in our society has expanded so rapidly, that while Gibson was speaking about the future when he made several references to how technology would eventually come to the forefront of society, his prediction has proven accurate in less time than probably even he thought. We as humans depend on our technology for so much more than what anyone in the 80s could’ve envisioned, and if technological advancements continue at their current rate, there will be only more questions about what it means to be human.