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A fun, humorous, fast-paced, and fascinating take on what happens when an AI awakens. In order to tell this story, Reid invents a fictional Silicon Valley company called Pluttr, which seems sort of like a mashup of Snapchat+Facebook+WeChat but with more big data about us all, so it’s able to really personalize it’s experience. Frankly it seems like a good idea and where the afore mentioned companies are likely going. And this is one of my favorite things about good science fiction - it predicts the future. While not everything about this novel will come true, it is clear that Reid - who is a former tech CEO himself (and disclosure, a friend) - did his homework about technological trends and weaves them in nicely to a thrilling singularity story (Note: the book doesn’t use the word “singularity� at all, in a homage to current silicon valley trends, because for some reason that I get but don’t quite understand that word is passé - but instead to renames it “the omega point�).

One of the most interesting aspects of the book for me is the fictional company Phluttr. I mean, when an AI finally awakens you’d have to put your money on Google doing it (if it happens in the private sector) - they are the furthest along in the intersection of having the key ingredients: lots of data about people, AI technology, and computing power. But I suppose it would be weird to use a real company - Dave Eggers The Circle was similar in describing a company that was basically FB+Google. But as I said, it does seem like the descriptions of Phluttr will happen, once the both the AI improves (pretty much possible now), the dataset known about each user vastly increases (happening in some pockets), and computing power improves (will be there soon). And thinking through the possibilities of what that will enable was super fun. For instance, there was an scene in the beginning of the book where Phluttr deduced that two of the characters were at the same bar and likely there on a date, and gave them coupons and messages/information appropriate to that deduction.

One of the more interesting philosophical questions tackled by the book is: should we try to accelerate creation of a super AI? Since the first one created will have a decisive advantage and any other super AI’s created will never catch up to its intelligence nor power. Many think that the creation of a super AI is inevitable anyways, and there is a chance that whoever creates it may retain some control or benefit - though there is a very high risk you wouldn't - which is the debate. (view spoiler)[The book has characters that take both sides of this question, but ultimately lands that major countries (US, China, others) will get into an “arms race� and strive to create it. Doesn’t seem unlikely. AI in general (regardless of a super AI) will be the next nuclear arms race, no question - already is if you look at all the hacking and security issues (eg US presidential election). (hide spoiler)]

But don’t let my introspections about the subject matter make you think this is a deep thinking AI book. It is a fast paced, fun thriller with a twist at the end. It’s also got a good amount of self-deprecating-silicon-valley humor - eg I loved the fictional persuadif.er blog, with posts such as “Eat on the phone� and then you find poor characters like Pugwash doing just that. Or fun references thrown in like how Tim Tebow is now a VR tycoon (huh?). Bottom line: this captures interesting technological trends in a humorous & thrilling read - highly recommended!