How do you know that chat, voice, or video is really a human or not?
Your Behavior Will Be Monitored, by Justin Feinstein. Published by Tachyon
In all the reviews of books I have read, and I read a heap of science fiction, I have never used the word 'prescient' to describe my thoughts on a novel; that is until now. This is foremost a prescient insight into, not a distant future, but a tomorrow that is highly plausible, chilling, but maybe hopeful, if we heed warnings. Indeed a commentary on AI sentience and what it is to be alive.
In my day job I work for a company pushing AI into every product, and every tool that employees use. This whole book was relatable in a deeply personal level. I work in tech, I understand introverts and I see the way COVID has affected social competencies.
Perhaps this book also quickly befriended me as I work in an office environment, and this was secondarily a satire of office life, but augmented with AI co-workers. I smiled, laughed, and nodded knowingly at quite a bit of the interactions happening. In an odd sort of way you could say this is Officespace for the AI generation. But instead of Michael, Samir and Peter, you have bots whose characteristics I found endearing and a touch frightening. I love that the protagonist, a burned out ad agency writer, is the most human and decent person among a crowd of so-called genius eningeers.
Because this book had tendrils that connected to so many different nerve endings of my life, I could not stop reading, much to my wife's concern. It took over every moment. I have read a few epistolary novels in my day, but this modern take of surveillance video transcriptions and chat logs made it SO much fun to read. While I disagree with the authors views on death, we all should take stock of what we are doing with this life.
This book is a novel, but it would be criminal to label it merely entertainment. This story takes shots at corporate culture and workaholism, billionaire CEO's, and the pursuit of profit and science without conscience.
If you work in an office, or interact with or are even tangentially affected by AI (if you use the internet at all, you already are), or simply would love the pleasure of tearing through a book where things quickly spin out of control, like the irresistibility of tuning into a slowly unfolding disaster, I most highly recommend this.
Thank you to Tachyon and Netgalley for the review copy of this amazing book.
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