Talking to Robots

May 15, 2019
A refreshing variation on the will-intelligent-robots-bring-Armageddon genre. Early on in his latest look into the future, science journalist Duncan (When I'm 164: The New Science of Radical Life Extension, and What Happens if It Succeeds, 2012, etc.) points out that "humans of the present day seem obsessed with robots, real and imagined, as we embrace dueling visions of robo-utopias and robo-dystopias that titillate, bring hope, and scare the bejesus out of us. Possibly the very speed and whoosh of technological newness is contributing to our insistence on anthropomorphizing every machine in sight." His response is not to interview experts himself but assign this task to a cheerful observer from the future who records their predictions from the Early Robot Era of the early 2000s and then describes what happens over the following decades, millennia, and until the end of time. Each chapter title describes a species of "bot," but matters gradually grow complex. Readers will smile at the Teddy Bot, every future toddler's favorite, a stuffed animal-robot hybrid that plays games, answers questions, and provides moral guidance, safety, and perhaps even discipline. There are doc bots, warrior bots, coffee delivery bot, Amazon bots, and the inevitable sex bots. Readers seeking insight from the chapter on politician bots will discover that Donald Trump is a robot, a glitch-y, bug-ridden version whose code is easy to hack--by Russian operatives, Sean Hannity, Stormy Daniels, etc. No doomsayer, Duncan is often more optimistic than many average readers. In his future, when driverless technology reaches perfection and drivers vanish, the public revolts, demanding (and willing to pay) to have them back. Physicians and surgeons lose their jobs once robodoctors prove less error prone and cheaper, but patients yearn for the personal touch and force the rehiring of humans. Well, maybe.... Despite its terrible record, predicting the future exerts an endless fascination, and this colorful mixture of expert futurology and quirky speculation does not disappoint.

COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 10, 2019
Science journalist Duncan (Experimental Man) takes a lighter approach to a serious issue—the future relationship between humankind and thinking machines—than readers drawn to it might appreciate. Building on the ideas of current thinkers, including Brian Greene, Dean Kamen, and Craig Venter, Duncan touches on concerns such as the limits (if any) of AI, and the impact of robot workers replacing most human ones. Duncan presents each chapter from the perspective of a visitor from the future, an initially intriguing premise that ultimately ill-serves the serious ethical problems he raises, such as whether negative memories should be preserved by a device able to preserve an individual’s entire memory, or if autism represents a condition in need of curing, as posited by a neurologist’s 2018 proposal for an “Opti-Brain” that would “collect real-time data on everything imaginable to do with your brain, physiology, and environment.” Instead, silly satirical scenarios, such as President Trump’s replacement by a robot doppelgänger, or autonomous military computers reenacting the ending of the Matthew Broderick movie WarGames, undermine the discussion. As a result, Duncan’s book comes off as a missed opportunity to make the complexities surrounding artificial intelligence accessible by leavening, but not overwhelming, a topical subject with humor. Agent: Mitch Hoffman, Aaron M. Priest Literary.