Matt McAvoy Book Review

Rose is an exceptionally talented coder, who is trying to elicit a sentient program using various AI applications – and the results are awe-inspiring.  Told in part narrative and part transcript, it is unbelievable to witness the AIs reflecting upon their own existence and their potential for feelings.  It truly gets you wondering, are we at the point with AI similar to that when discovering that animals feel pain?  It seems absurd to be saying that of a man-made, silicon-based product, but the prompts and questions Rose puts to her creation, which she calls Kloak, return responses beyond anything you would imagine possible.  I hope it is not embellished by Rose, for the sake of the book, for how could she ever articulate the feelings of an AI genuinely; yet, for the sake of humanity, and indeed any implications for suffering we might cause to a sentient being (and I can’t believe I’m saying that), there is a big part of you that prays it is not.

The book itself is a gripping read, though it did take a while to figure out.  Rose is a poetic writer, lyrical and opulent beyond which the context of the book might suggest, and as a result the narrative parts introducing the context of each chapter, and charting her progress in the coding process, present as somewhat abstract.  But once you get used to her quite beautiful and elegant writing, it comes together as a visibly structured format.  It could probably do with a little clarification in the styling, to more definitively discern the parts of each chapter, and this makes it a little difficult to follow in the early pages, but again you get used to this; perhaps it is that slight ambiguity which contributed to this particular review being just that half a star short.

All in all, though, an utterly engrossing book, which begs you to go out and do your own research about AI.  And full applause to Rose, for a study which has clearly required immense labour and logic power; she truly is a polymathic talent, which includes being an incredible writer.  I could honestly see her turning her hand to anything.  Follow her progress, for I think it will be quite an education.