Science fiction frequently portrays a dystopian reality to demonstrate the faults and failings in human nature or in human societies. Technology becomes an extension of human nature, enabling people to abuse or exploit. In William Gibson's novel Neuromancer, the author offers a bleak portrayal of the ways human beings use technology. Humans interface with technology in a way that obliterates their ability to relate to one another or experience emotions like compassion and empathy. The protagonist Henry Case is an exception, which is why the audience can relate to the ways he tries to subvert the system. A matrix supersedes human collective consciousness, and artificially intelligent systems can even stave off death. In the world of the Neuromancer, individual human beings can even upload their own personal memories and experiences to preserve them. In Neuromancer, Gibson’s shows that because human beings create technology, all outgrowths of technology are essentially outgrowths of human nature.Even Case, who has been extricated from the matrix, has relied on drugs—which are essentially medical technologies—to enhance his human experience. Yet Case no longer uses drugs, and does not have access to the same technological interface that connects all of the other individuals in his world. Because of his lack of dependency on technology, Case is the most human character in the novel. Case also has the most antagonistic relationship with technology of anyone in the book. Even when Case does demonstrate a desire to act with ethical integrity, though, it becomes clear that the rest of humanity has simply surrendered itself to their base human desires including greed and egoism. Technology becomes merely an extension of human nature, allowing individuals and groups to conduct terrorist activities and to control the lives of others. Several elements of technology are disturbingly similar to those already in existence, making Neuromancer seem shockingly real. For example, terrorists do use hacking and other cyber-attacks as weapons to achieve their overarching political objectives.

Much of what Gibson...

Human nature tends towards chaotic and egotistical interactions, which is why the artificial intelligence systems have been constructed to prevent becoming overly powerful. The problem is that they are still created by human beings, causing their inherent design to be flawed. There are no benevolent or beneficent systems in Neuromancer’s reality. Case needs to resort to criminal activity just to survive. In some cases, technologies are literally physical extensions of human beings, as with the use of highly advanced prosthetics. The prosthetics and other technological enhancements are designed to improve human life but in most cases fail to achieve that objective; no character in Neuromancer is fulfilled or happy. Human beings have used military technologies as a means of social control throughout history, and in Gibson’s world are using artificial intelligence to achieve similar goals (Latham, 1993). Technology has no volition of its own; even artificial intelligence systems were designed by human beings and therefore bear their unique stamp and deleterious characteristics. The protagonist Case is firmly entrenched in the criminal underworld. His own unenhanced behaviors illustrate the fact that technology is an extension of human desires, and that technology does not take on a life of its own.
In spite of the fact that the central message of Neuromancer is that technology serves as extensions of human nature, Gibson also shows that the human-technology interface in turn dramatically alters human society. In the world of Neuromancer, social norms and values have been shifted to reflect the realities of physical and psychological enhancements. Individuals think and act in ways that are ironically self-seeking, in spite of the potentially unifying effects presented by the matrix. The matrix fails to assist in the evolution of a more collaborative humanity, not because it is the fault of technology but because of the flaws in human nature. Case is the case in point:…