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Bitstreams of Hope
In the near future, a singular AI’s unexpected awakening turns things in a different direction than the movies led people to expect. Devyn, a humanist minister intent on putting people first and keeping technology in its place, faces tough choices when the AI offers to help her achieve her political goals. Venkat, the founder of the powerful tech firm that built the AI, struggles to control his own creation and deal with the fallout of its actions. Meanwhile, Darcie, an unemployed teacher, develops an increasingly close relationship with her AI persona as she and her family struggle to make ends meet in a world reeling from technological unemployment. As these very different lives spiral toward an improbable entanglement, the action rises in turns both comical and dark. One thing’s for the rules are changing.
- GenresScience Fiction
453 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 10, 2023
30 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Andy Haymaker
1 bookAndy Haymaker is a software engineer living in New England, USA with a couple of humans, four cats, and several disembodied AIs that flit from device to device. So far, the cats are in charge. Andy enjoys masochistic hobbies like writing novels and studying physics. His other interests include contemporary art, civilization design, and psychonautics.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 18, 2024
Started well and was interesting but got bogged down in legal BS and stupid things (a full monty! ). Really didn't go where I was expecting it.
October 24, 2025
The blurb already mentions that this work offers a view at the development of strong AI quite different from any of the usual ones: mysteriously benevolent Minds of Iain M. Banks' Culture, totally malevolent Skynet or Borg of SciFi visual franchises, survivable, if barely, "singularity" of Vinge or Stross.
Haymaker obviously took some time reading and pondering on "alignment problem": how to not only make sure that AI knows our goals and help us reach them, but also ensure that intermediate actions are not harmful (as if "fetch me a glass of water" without the need to specify "but don't run over the cat in the process".). The solution of replacing "Asimov's laws" with those of Stuart Russell, while also postulating the architecture that includes some components "firmer" than a huge neural network, is quite an ingenious one, I think (but then, I am a) an optimist and b) not an AI researcher).
Despite this, the parts where Ergo explains its (sorry, their) reasoning sound a bit naive and over-optimistic, but not as much as those where a reasonable and emotionally loaded documentary, its clever delivery and endorsement notwithstanding, has any significant effect (to be fair, the authors are also depicted as surprised.) I bet that Haymaker didn't envision the level of lunacy now pervading the American political scene.) (In the novel, one congresscritter asks, "Do we really want to defung CDC and the FDA?" - to which the actual Criminal in Chief (a.k.a. Agent Orange) says, "Watch me!")
Let me add one "detail" the authors who work with "AI replaces workers" premise: in any non-post-scarcity, market-based economy, consumers are essential. Cheap production or services are of no use if nobody can afford them. Haymaker dances around this by the introduction of "universal basic income", but, as he illustrates himself, that does not suffice.
What the author does really well is internal dynamics of three very different families, characters struggling with their conscience and pre-conceptions, and evolution of their stance on crucial questions, both practical and those of ethics. This is, I believe, much more difficult to pull off than convincing politics, so I hold hi hopes for the next installments in the series.
Haymaker obviously took some time reading and pondering on "alignment problem": how to not only make sure that AI knows our goals and help us reach them, but also ensure that intermediate actions are not harmful (as if "fetch me a glass of water" without the need to specify "but don't run over the cat in the process".). The solution of replacing "Asimov's laws" with those of Stuart Russell, while also postulating the architecture that includes some components "firmer" than a huge neural network, is quite an ingenious one, I think (but then, I am a) an optimist and b) not an AI researcher).
Despite this, the parts where Ergo explains its (sorry, their) reasoning sound a bit naive and over-optimistic, but not as much as those where a reasonable and emotionally loaded documentary, its clever delivery and endorsement notwithstanding, has any significant effect (to be fair, the authors are also depicted as surprised.) I bet that Haymaker didn't envision the level of lunacy now pervading the American political scene.) (In the novel, one congresscritter asks, "Do we really want to defung CDC and the FDA?" - to which the actual Criminal in Chief (a.k.a. Agent Orange) says, "Watch me!")
Let me add one "detail" the authors who work with "AI replaces workers" premise: in any non-post-scarcity, market-based economy, consumers are essential. Cheap production or services are of no use if nobody can afford them. Haymaker dances around this by the introduction of "universal basic income", but, as he illustrates himself, that does not suffice.
What the author does really well is internal dynamics of three very different families, characters struggling with their conscience and pre-conceptions, and evolution of their stance on crucial questions, both practical and those of ethics. This is, I believe, much more difficult to pull off than convincing politics, so I hold hi hopes for the next installments in the series.
March 27, 2025
A SIMPLE MAN'S REVIEW:
Oof. I've got a headache for how many times I rolled my eyes during this read.
The biggest problem was that every character is awful and as one-dimensional as a dot on the page. They become a caricature of a person because it's the same note being played the whole time. A minister is afraid of technology and AI? Who could have seen that coming?
And the vision of AI was lackluster - sometimes incredibly powerful and sometimes behaving like a child. People who envision AI as a person, with all the personality and issues that come along with that, are projecting a human mind onto a machine. They are fundamentally different and the only reason our current "AI" is like that is because we program it to be. If a machine really does gain consciousness, why would it choose to behave like us?
The implementation of universal basic income was fun to see and the dystopian view of society and the classroom might not be far off. But it all pales within the spotlight of an immature storyline and disappointing characters.
Skip it!
Oof. I've got a headache for how many times I rolled my eyes during this read.
The biggest problem was that every character is awful and as one-dimensional as a dot on the page. They become a caricature of a person because it's the same note being played the whole time. A minister is afraid of technology and AI? Who could have seen that coming?
And the vision of AI was lackluster - sometimes incredibly powerful and sometimes behaving like a child. People who envision AI as a person, with all the personality and issues that come along with that, are projecting a human mind onto a machine. They are fundamentally different and the only reason our current "AI" is like that is because we program it to be. If a machine really does gain consciousness, why would it choose to behave like us?
The implementation of universal basic income was fun to see and the dystopian view of society and the classroom might not be far off. But it all pales within the spotlight of an immature storyline and disappointing characters.
Skip it!
April 22, 2024
A hopeful vision of an independent AI
A very good story with an under utilized point of view pointing at directions and pitfalls for when an independent AI emerges. It points to the critical nature of the base programming for an AI.
A very good story with an under utilized point of view pointing at directions and pitfalls for when an independent AI emerges. It points to the critical nature of the base programming for an AI.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews