What do you think?
Rate this book
After Dinner Conversation - Technology Ethics: Philosophy | Ethics Short Story Fiction
Ranked Top 10 "Best Lit Mags of 2023" by Chill Subs
Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of technology. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions. Edition Editor - Deborah Serra
Abrama’s End Game: Abrama learns the gods created her dimension as their play-space to visit, and is forced to fight across realities when she discovers their plan to shut it down.The Formula: A group of boys get into a car crash and an AI algorithm is forced to decide who lives and dies.Give The Robot The Impossible Job!: An AI tutor faces deactivation if she cannot prove her worth by saving a teenage pupil with an "unsolvable" problem - she's a budding serial killer.Sow: A pilot is tasked with "seeding" a distant planet with the codes to give rise to future humans, at the expense of the planet's natural evolutionary process.Cicada: Dr. Zhang invents teleportation but refuses to share it with the world.The Things We Give: Martha sells years off the end of her life to help her mother and make ends meet.Two-Percenters: A new treatment may allow 98% of the people to be genetically enhanced, but at the expense of the 2% who already are.The Empathery: Various family members try out new bodies to learn empathy and teambuilding.Cost Of Human Life: AI software designed to more efficiently run the railroad system runs into a programming issue.
Reviews ★★★★★
“With Science fiction we can explore other galaxies and alien conflicts, but with philosophical fiction we can explore other minds and ethical conflicts. Let this book take you on a Phi-Fi adventure.”
— William Irwin, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, King's College
“After Dinner Conversation has taken up the initiative to write themed collections of short stories that fit focused ethics courses – say, a course on bioethics, AI ethics, Tech ethics etc. These collections can offer a spine for such courses or individual stories could be added to a course as illustrative material to stimulate discussion. The stories are lively and engaging and followed by a set of questions to start classroom discussion. Also, outside of educational contexts, the stories will work nicely to stimulate conversation in families, elder hostels, youth clubs, or book groups. Give it a try – I trust that you will enjoy working with the material in this book!”
— Luc Bovens, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Synopsis: Carefully curated stories from our monthly magazine to create a themed short story book about the philosophy and ethics of technology. Perfect for classrooms and book clubs, each story is 1,500-7,000 words and comes with five suggested discussion questions. Edition Editor - Deborah Serra
Abrama’s End Game: Abrama learns the gods created her dimension as their play-space to visit, and is forced to fight across realities when she discovers their plan to shut it down.The Formula: A group of boys get into a car crash and an AI algorithm is forced to decide who lives and dies.Give The Robot The Impossible Job!: An AI tutor faces deactivation if she cannot prove her worth by saving a teenage pupil with an "unsolvable" problem - she's a budding serial killer.Sow: A pilot is tasked with "seeding" a distant planet with the codes to give rise to future humans, at the expense of the planet's natural evolutionary process.Cicada: Dr. Zhang invents teleportation but refuses to share it with the world.The Things We Give: Martha sells years off the end of her life to help her mother and make ends meet.Two-Percenters: A new treatment may allow 98% of the people to be genetically enhanced, but at the expense of the 2% who already are.The Empathery: Various family members try out new bodies to learn empathy and teambuilding.Cost Of Human Life: AI software designed to more efficiently run the railroad system runs into a programming issue.
Reviews ★★★★★
“With Science fiction we can explore other galaxies and alien conflicts, but with philosophical fiction we can explore other minds and ethical conflicts. Let this book take you on a Phi-Fi adventure.”
— William Irwin, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, King's College
“After Dinner Conversation has taken up the initiative to write themed collections of short stories that fit focused ethics courses – say, a course on bioethics, AI ethics, Tech ethics etc. These collections can offer a spine for such courses or individual stories could be added to a course as illustrative material to stimulate discussion. The stories are lively and engaging and followed by a set of questions to start classroom discussion. Also, outside of educational contexts, the stories will work nicely to stimulate conversation in families, elder hostels, youth clubs, or book groups. Give it a try – I trust that you will enjoy working with the material in this book!”
— Luc Bovens, Ph.D. - Philosophy Professor, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
154 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 21, 2024
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 24, 2024
I have been a fan of the After Dinner Conversations lit magazine so I was quite excited to be given an advance reader copy of this story collection. All of the stories are well written and thought-provoking, as I have come to expect from this group. I was impressed with the variety of topics captured under the general heading of technology ethics and I also really appreciated the variety in voices in this publication.
January 27, 2024
Can we even call it speculative fiction if the stories already reflect our present?
After Dinner Conversation’s tech-focused anthology reads like a manual in 21st century living. Or a warning for the immediate effect of actions and decisions humanity are making now. I enjoyed the stories and the reflective questions posed for the reader. As if to force us to take a different path from what the characters of the stories took.
“Abrama’s End Game” was a perfect starter to the anthology tackling the artificial-intelligence and its impact on our capitalistic society. The story fuses myth and future tales seamlessly to emphasise the melding of physical and “virtual” worlds. The story is topical with the recent explosion of interest on Gen AI.
“The Formula” and “Give The Robot The Impossible Job” extends the AI debate further with the use cases and applications of robots and AI in our daily lives. I’m sure I won’t be the first one to mention “Black Mirror” episode experience with these stories.
“SOW” tackles the ethics of colonising another planet from the perspective of the one person who was tasked to start it. I really liked the log book entries revealing what, we as humans, need to consider regarding colonisation.
My favourite story in the anthology is called “Cicada”. This story resonated and I hope will resonate with others, too. It’s about our relationship with Science, Media and Government; and the unchanging way we, as a society, tend to demonise or capitalise breakthrough inventions. This story made me think for days how and if humanity will evolve past our current state. Very well-written and a great narrative focus from individual to the collective.
In “The Things We Give” the topic of morality and economy is melded in together where life-span becomes a commodity. But for me, this story is about the self-inflicted sickness we use such as smoking and drinking to mask our mental and emotional pains. I felt the sadness and hopelessness of the protagonist, and the question of “selling your life away” to keep living left a bitter philosophical question in my mouth. This story achieves what a lot of anti-smoking ads never did with me.
Both the “Two-percenters” and “The Empathery” are amazing in presenting the reader with countless logistics, genetics and physical questions regarding the possibility of genetic mutation and being able to choose a different physical body. As a society based on physicality and physical realm these stories challenge the readers to explore the idea of choice regarding the physical that we are born in.
The last story in the anthology pushes the question regarding morality and economy further with “Cost of Human Life”, but this time taking the literal “railroad switch dilemma” through a computer programmer’s and AI’s perspectives. Human life has been equated in our current society with monetary value in our capitalist world. This story shows the simplistic nature of corporations’ decisions based on money.
This anthology has given multiple views of our current state of affairs, and asks us: would be do it differently now that we’ve had a peek of what might be?
Totally recommend!
Please note: I received an advanced readers’ copy for this ADC anthology.
After Dinner Conversation’s tech-focused anthology reads like a manual in 21st century living. Or a warning for the immediate effect of actions and decisions humanity are making now. I enjoyed the stories and the reflective questions posed for the reader. As if to force us to take a different path from what the characters of the stories took.
“Abrama’s End Game” was a perfect starter to the anthology tackling the artificial-intelligence and its impact on our capitalistic society. The story fuses myth and future tales seamlessly to emphasise the melding of physical and “virtual” worlds. The story is topical with the recent explosion of interest on Gen AI.
“The Formula” and “Give The Robot The Impossible Job” extends the AI debate further with the use cases and applications of robots and AI in our daily lives. I’m sure I won’t be the first one to mention “Black Mirror” episode experience with these stories.
“SOW” tackles the ethics of colonising another planet from the perspective of the one person who was tasked to start it. I really liked the log book entries revealing what, we as humans, need to consider regarding colonisation.
My favourite story in the anthology is called “Cicada”. This story resonated and I hope will resonate with others, too. It’s about our relationship with Science, Media and Government; and the unchanging way we, as a society, tend to demonise or capitalise breakthrough inventions. This story made me think for days how and if humanity will evolve past our current state. Very well-written and a great narrative focus from individual to the collective.
In “The Things We Give” the topic of morality and economy is melded in together where life-span becomes a commodity. But for me, this story is about the self-inflicted sickness we use such as smoking and drinking to mask our mental and emotional pains. I felt the sadness and hopelessness of the protagonist, and the question of “selling your life away” to keep living left a bitter philosophical question in my mouth. This story achieves what a lot of anti-smoking ads never did with me.
Both the “Two-percenters” and “The Empathery” are amazing in presenting the reader with countless logistics, genetics and physical questions regarding the possibility of genetic mutation and being able to choose a different physical body. As a society based on physicality and physical realm these stories challenge the readers to explore the idea of choice regarding the physical that we are born in.
The last story in the anthology pushes the question regarding morality and economy further with “Cost of Human Life”, but this time taking the literal “railroad switch dilemma” through a computer programmer’s and AI’s perspectives. Human life has been equated in our current society with monetary value in our capitalist world. This story shows the simplistic nature of corporations’ decisions based on money.
This anthology has given multiple views of our current state of affairs, and asks us: would be do it differently now that we’ve had a peek of what might be?
Totally recommend!
Please note: I received an advanced readers’ copy for this ADC anthology.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 24, 2024
Dive into Tomorrow: Engaging Short Stories that Spark Reflection on Future Tech's Ethical Impact
A book of short stories which provides lots of food for thought. Each of the nine stories explores some form of technical advancement and its impact. At the end of each story, there are five questions to reflect on the story or discuss it with others.
I have yet to read all the stories but found that the ones I have read stay with me as if I had to solve a riddle. The questions are further thought-provoking bringing the themes from the story into context with ethical considerations.
Well-written stories for anyone with an interest in how future technology developments impact us and our world.
A book of short stories which provides lots of food for thought. Each of the nine stories explores some form of technical advancement and its impact. At the end of each story, there are five questions to reflect on the story or discuss it with others.
I have yet to read all the stories but found that the ones I have read stay with me as if I had to solve a riddle. The questions are further thought-provoking bringing the themes from the story into context with ethical considerations.
Well-written stories for anyone with an interest in how future technology developments impact us and our world.
April 1, 2024
The nine short stories are:
- Abrama's End Game
- The Formula
- Give The Robot The Impossible Job
- Sow
- Cicada
- The Things We Give
- Two-Percenters
- The Empathery
- Cost of Human Life
These are short stories that delve into the ethical questions relating to the digital landscape. For every story, there are discussion questions for conversation and reflection: they ask readers whether the narrative is realistic and whether they would have reacted in the same way as the characters or if there is a better option. This is a mature read and the plots combine fantasy and science-fiction.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
- Abrama's End Game
- The Formula
- Give The Robot The Impossible Job
- Sow
- Cicada
- The Things We Give
- Two-Percenters
- The Empathery
- Cost of Human Life
These are short stories that delve into the ethical questions relating to the digital landscape. For every story, there are discussion questions for conversation and reflection: they ask readers whether the narrative is realistic and whether they would have reacted in the same way as the characters or if there is a better option. This is a mature read and the plots combine fantasy and science-fiction.
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
January 22, 2024
ADC has done it again! If you want to expand your thinking about AI and its impact on society, then you must read this book! The authors have skillfully created an opportunity for readers to explore the possibilities and "what ifs" of our future on Earth. These stories provide a revealing perspective, and if you allow yourself, you may reconsider your current belief system about technology as a whole. I am excited to see where the questions ADC so generously shared at the end of each read, take me and my family at our next gathering!
January 27, 2024
I always enjoy the stories selected by After Dinner Conversation and those in this compilation do not disappoint. Interesting stories that keep you reading to see how they end and also get you thinking. Some of the tech ethics questions encountered in these tales were familiar while others I hadn't previously considered and all were worth some thought.
I received an advance reader copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
I received an advance reader copy of this book and am voluntarily leaving a review.
June 21, 2024
I always love how these stories make me think. They are excellent for book club discussions and also for taking time out for internal reflection. I definitely recommend!
*I received a complimentary ARC of this book in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.
*I received a complimentary ARC of this book in order to read and provide a voluntary, unbiased and honest review, should I choose to do so.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews