All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) by Martha Wells

In All Systems Red a sentient android, who calls herself, Murderbot, is with a group of scientists on a mission to survey a planet. She (though technically not a she, but I think of her as a she) is responsible for the security of the group.

When things begin going horribly wrong, Murderbot’s job becomes infinitely more complex. She doesn’t experience emotions but is thrust into situation after situation where the humans around her are dealing with emotions.

At least she has hours of videos in storage to keep her busy- watching films is her favorite pastime.

It’s not an easy job. But someone has to do it.

From the first pages of this story, I was hooked. Author Martha Wells pulled me in and my attention never wavered throughout this novella. It’s easy to see why this one is an award winner – both Hugo and Nebula Awards.

The characters are delightful. The action is both intense and entertaining.

Throughout the story, I was mentally comparing Murderbot’s interactions with other people with the plight of real soldiers who are returning from war. In many ways, she feels like she doesn’t belong. Her special skillsets and very existence forever separates her from the people around her.

She has no emotions; mimicking the numbness that some soldiers feel with post-traumatic stress disorder.

I realize soldiers are not actually robots, but the allegories drawn from this book could make for interesting book club conversations.

Even though it’s science fiction, it’s not the “hard” variety which leads to appeal far beyond the typical group of science fiction readers.

This is a stand-alone novel as well as the first in a series. Readers who are completionists, like me, may like that, especially if they’re reading outside of their typical genre.

Highly recommended for fiction readers and book clubs.

Thanks for reading!

Virtually Human: The Promise and the Peril of Digital Immortality by Martine Rothblatt

Dr. Martine Rothblatt, an expert in medical ethics, takes the time to imagine a future in which artificial intelligence is real and the potential problems that could arise from such interactions.

Unfortunately, I found Virtually Human to be virtually unreadable.

The introduction sounded promising enough — a description of the robot that Dr. Rothblatt created and its capabilities — but then Dr. Rothblatt launches into an abstract conversation about what is consciousness. She applies her definition to hypothetical artificial intelligences, which haven’t been created yet, and proceeds into a dizzying array of potential scenarios involving mindclones and “bemans”.

She talks about potential marriages between people and machines, various types of AI — some dysfunctional, some not — voting rights, reproduction rights, and more. It all reads like a discussion of very dry, very abstract human rights law mixed with a smidgen of science fiction, but not enough to be engaging.

Dr. Rothblatt certainly knows her stuff, but is seemingly unable to impart her knowledge in an approachable manner. Perhaps, I should say, this is a book that would probably be enjoyed by scholars interested the subject.

I suppose this might be more interesting when such technology actually exists, but in the meantime, it seems rather pointless to be asking ourselves if mindclones should have the right to vote or not. I’m not convinced that by asking ourselves unanswerable questions we’ll be better prepared for when/if this sort of thing actually occurs. Maybe we’ll just have to take life as it comes.

I received a free copy of this book through Goodreads First Reads.

Thanks for reading!

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Tag: artificial intelligence