The moral questions Mary Shelley posed in 1818 — What does a creator owe its creation? What happens when ambition outpaces responsibility? — will get a 21st-century update Sunday when the Pasadena Public Library hosts a discussion linking Frankenstein to the rise of artificial intelligence.
The event, titled “Frankenstein: Myths and the Real Story?,” is part of the library’s 24th annual One City, One Story program, which this year selected The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami as its community read. The Lalami novel, a dystopian story about a woman detained after an algorithm flags her dreams as evidence of a future crime, explores many of the same tensions Shelley dramatized two centuries ago: the seductiveness of technological power, the consequences of surrendering human judgment to systems, and what happens to people those systems discard.
Rosemary Choate, a comparative literature and humanities instructor who founded the Pomona College Alumni Book Club, will lead the discussion at the Hastings Branch Library on Sunday, March 15, from 3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Choate, a 1963 Pomona College graduate who received the college’s Alumni Distinguished Service Award in 2013, will explore the similarities and differences between Frankenstein and The Dream Hotel, according to the library’s event description.
The discussion will examine themes of creator responsibility, unchecked technological ambition and societal rejection of the “creation,” which the library describes as “highly relevant to contemporary debates surrounding the development and governance of AI,” according to the program’s published materials.
Shelley’s novel, first published anonymously in 1818, tells the story of a scientist who constructs a living being and then abandons it, with devastating consequences. Lalami’s 2025 novel transposes that dynamic into a near-future America where a government agency uses data harvested from citizens’ dreams to predict — and pre-emptively punish — crime. Lalami, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist, has said that the novel began with a simple observation about how much personal data technology companies already collect.
The Frankenstein discussion is one of more than a dozen free One City, One Story events scheduled throughout March. Others include a lecture on AI and emerging science at the Huntington Medical Research Institute on March 12, a dream interpretation talk at Vroman’s Bookstore on March 16, and a conversation with Lalami herself on Saturday, March 21, at 2:00 p.m. at Pasadena Presbyterian Church, 585 E. Colorado Blvd.
One City, One Story, sponsored by the Friends of the Pasadena Public Library and the Pasadena Literary Alliance, is designed to bring the community together through shared reading and conversation, according to the library. A 19-member committee of community volunteers, led by Senior Librarian Christine Reeder, selected The Dream Hotel for this year’s program. The novel is available for checkout at all Pasadena public library branches and for sale at local bookstores.
The March 15 event at Hastings Branch is free, open to the public and requires no registration. It is recommended for ages 13 and older. The Hastings Branch Library is located at 3325 East Orange Grove Boulevard.
For more information on the full One City, One Story schedule, visit CityOfPasadena.Libguides.com/
“Novels aren’t prophecies, but they are simulations,” Lalami has said of The Dream Hotel. “They’re a way to ask, what if this happened? What would we do, then?”
Two hundred eight years after Shelley asked that question, a Pasadena library branch is asking it again — this time about algorithms.
