A.I. Apocalypse by William Hertling
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
A.I. Apocalypse is Mr. Hertling’s second book and a direct sequel to “Avogadro Corp”.
The plot starts when a Leon, a gifted teenager, inadvertently unleashes a virus that spawns an entire civilisation of A.I.s. We are re-acquainted with Mike Williams and the (now rather cute, loveable and just a little creepy) ELOPe from “Avogadro Corp”.
I quite enjoyed the first half of the book where the author describes how the A.I.s evolve, how their civilisation was organised and the fallout of all this happening. The second half describes the interaction between the human and A.I. civilisations with ELOPe acting as an intermediary.
The story has some interesting ideas – the military using massively multiplayer games to recruit soldiers, the idea of trade replacing competition as the central organising principle of the A.I. civlisation, and the use of evolutionary algorithms.
As in Avogadro Corp, the writing in A.I. Apocalypse is uneven. Instead of conversing, the characters seem to be quoting from wikipedia. I also found it hard to empathise with most of the main characters.
I am interested in A.I., neural networks and machine learning, so this did not bother me, but avoid this book if you are looking for sparkling dialogue. Mr. Hertling does throw in some bits which made me laugh out loud. In one scene, an A.I. states “All your bases belong to us”. I guess Mr. Hertling knows his target audience.
I would give the book 3.5 stars.
Related review: Avogadro Corp By William Hertling.