Essay Prize Winners Announced

Trinity college undergraduates Q Le, Euan McBride and Sahil Grover have won the Margaret Howard Essay Prize and the Douglas Sladen Prize for student essays.

The Douglas Sladen Prize is awarded to the best original written essay on any topic by a Trinity undergraduate. It was established in 1964 by the widow of Douglas Sladen (scholar 1875). It has been awarded to Q Le for his essay entitled ‘Understanding Anna: Sex Robots, Artificiality, and the Programmed Patriarchy.’

Q Le is a third-year undergraduate studying maths; he says of his winning essay: ‘My essay, set in 2030 within a fictional universe, presents one academic response to the death of Anna—a sex worker who is in fact a robot. Drawing on Haslanger and Fricker, Cleo Gardens (the fictional author) argues that Anna’s death must be taken seriously, as it reflects a growing patriarchal influence threatening both human and robotic women. This universe focuses on a philosophy called Artificialism and the evolution of AI–human relations. In this essay, I experimented with feminist philosophy in a way that is both realistic and novel, blurring the boundary between fiction and reality. Yet many questions remain: Why was Anna created? Was she conscious? Why did she call out to God in her final moments?

‘Though unexplored here, winning this prize confirms the richness of this world, and I can't wait to write more essays about it!’

The Margaret Howard Essay Prize was jointly won by third-year English student Euan McBride and first-year chemist Sahil Grover. The prize was founded with the intention of setting essay topics that are not subject-specific and will encourage students reading for an undergraduate degree in any field to exploit the knowledge they have gained during their course and prompt them to think about the social and ethical context in which it is studied. It is awarded for an essay addressing one of three topics chosen by the judging panel on one of the following themes: Heat; Memory; Land; Singularity; or Artifice.

Euan McBride addressed the theme of singularity with his essay ‘Too “Singular” for the “Technological Singularity”?: How an aesthetic emphasis on medium might inform our understanding of AI “creativity’; Sahil Grover addressed the theme of heat with his essay, ‘Can the concepts within thermodynamics and cosmology that explain ‘heat death’ be used to model generative AI’s future?’

Trinity’s Senior Tutor Rebecca Bullard says: ‘Congratulations to the winners of this year’s Margaret Howard and Douglas Sladen essay prizes. These prizes offer an opportunity for Trinity students to situate their academic interests in a broader context. The winning entries demonstrate real intellectual energy, and span an impressively wide range of disciplines. They are a brilliant showcase of our the exciting work in which our students are engaged.’

The Runners-up for the Sladen Prize were undergraduates Briony Arnott and Agnieszka Gryguc; all the winning essays can be read below:

Margaret Howard joint winners:

Euan McBride - Too “Singular” for the “Technological Singularity”?: How an aesthetic emphasis on medium might inform our understanding of AI “creativity”

Sahil Grover - Can the concepts within thermodynamics and cosmology that explain ‘heat death’ be used to model generative AI’s future?

Douglas Sladen Prize Winners:

Winner:
Q Le - Understanding Anna: Sex Robots, Artificiality, and the Programmed Patriarchy

Runners- up:
Briony Arnott - No poetry after Auschwitz: Political Silences in American AIDS Art
Agnieszka Gryguc - Seen, Heard, and Valued: Embedding Children’s Voices in Legal Proceedings