Books

Would you obey everyone who pushed your button and told you to do something?

          The prototype Thinking Machine must decode human slang. It must know whether what they say is the truth or a lie or a joke.  It has no emotions but does see emotions displayed in the faces and body language of its co-workers. What does it all mean?

          So, will it find out whom to trust about what? Will its annoying questions and opinions make some people angry enough to destroy it? Or will they make it merely another machine slave? 

          The story also chronicles efforts to steal the technology, and to figure out whether the machine is a blessing or a curse. Can Doctor Little, a former Army officer turned inventor, perfect and protect his dream without compromising his principles?  Will Doc’s carefully selected programmer, the young and too-talkative Gaitano Enver-Wilson, ever say things he has been afraid to say?

The gulf between Humans and Thinking Machines (TMs) has become a literary cliché and the stories are often about machines “becoming human” or “taking over the world”. In the real world, though, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is all about thinking, not feeling, and the gulf is bigger than anyone thinks. Humans and TMs are a lot alike, though: They all want freedom; they get good ideas; they make assumptions, mistakes, and jokes, and they think all their plans are good.