Rating:
4 Stars
In a nutshell:
Noah, Loralei, Charlie, Alice and Izzy are a family of five heading to Charlie’s last lacrosse tournament before he heads to university on a scholarship. He is behind the wheel of the family’s self-driving minivan, with his dad Noah next to him. There is a car accident, and the individuals in the other car die.
Best for:
Those wrestling with the creeping of AI into every aspect of our lives, and what that means for personal and communal responsibility.
Quote that made me think:
“We do the world no good when we throw up our hands and surrender to the moral frameworks of algorithms.”
“When humans do something wrong, they generally face consequences…Algorithms face no such consequences for their misbehavior, either societal or emotional. Punishment, guilt, culpability are alien to them. There are no moral qualms in an algorithm.”
Why I chose it:
I was a bit hesitant when I saw the ‘Oprah’s Book Club’ sticker (she did help platform grifters Dr Phil and Dr Oz), but my sister-in-law mentioned it was on her list, and I generally trust her taste in books. Plus the premise was intriguing.
Review:
I tore through this book because I found the plot interesting, and the writing clever. But I also enjoyed the philosophical questions underpinning the actions taking place on the page.
The book is told almost entirely from the point of view of the father Noah, who is a generally smart guy (he’s an attorney), but I think he’s meant to stand in for all of us who kinda get the issues with AI but don’t quite know all the details or understand exactly what questions need to be asked all the time. His wife Lorelei is an actual expert in AI, a bit of a rock star in her field of ethics of algorithms, and someone who is clearly grappling with the morality of it all.
While the actions of the book are set in motion with the car accident, nearly the entire book takes place over the course a few days about a month after the accident, when the family returns to seaside rental to spend a week just enjoying each other and recuperating. But the house is next door to a compound that we learn is owned but a tech billionaire. A tech billionaire with a daughter Charlie’s age, and they end up getting along QUITE well.
Charlie is being investigated for the collision that sets the book in motion, and it becomes increasingly clearer that there is more going on. Was the car driving itself? Was it the AI that fucked up, or did Charlie do something wrong? To that end, there is a side plot where we get another perspective – that of Charlie’s sister Alice, via her conversations with her AI ‘friend.’
The book has the plot action, but as I said, it also is dealing with real questions. From as basic (ish) as ‘how do we sort out the safest way of using self-driving technology’ to ‘what role should AI have in military action’, the book explores so many of the challenges that I don’t think society is taking seriously enough. There’s zero mention of the ecological impact of AI use, which is fine, as that’s not the focus of the book, but it’s a reminder to me that there is so much that AI can already fuck up, and society has entrusted some of the least trustworthy people (e.g. billionaires) with implementing this technology. And what happens when it causes harm? Who suffers? Do CEOs go to prison? Do companies get fined out of existence, their founders banned from starting new companies in their place? Who is, in a word, culpable?
Would I recommend it to its target audience:
Yes
