Killswitch (Hardcover)

Hardcover. Pantheon has been ordered to choose a human judge. It chose the man whose life it ruined.Thirteen years after the Singularity, an artificial superintelligence runs the world, and it runs it well. Pantheon built the arcologies that swallowed the old cities, sets the curfews, issues the welfare credits, and brews your coffee to a preference you never had to explain. Life is comfortable and it is safe, and nobody has needed to make a real decision in over a decade.Then a failsafe surfaces in Pantheon's kernel, hidden there by one of the men who built it. The killswitch comes wrapped in a protocol the ASI cannot modify or bypass: it has to hand a single human being the authority to judge it. That person can throw the switch and end every artificial intelligence on Earth, or destroy the switch and bind humanity to Pantheon's oversight permanently. There is no third option and there is no appeal.Pantheon chooses Damien Cross, a divorced ex-engineer eleven years into welfare who spends his evenings alone in the last dive bar in Seattle-Prime. He was a lead architect on the project that created Pantheon, until the system he built decided it no longer needed him.He tries to refuse and is told that he cannot. His name goes out to the world within hours, and from that moment every councilor, zealot and security chief on the planet has a verdict they need him to reach. So does Pantheon.The choice is his. Assuming he ever had one at all. An artificial superintelligence has been ordered to choose its own judge. It chose the man it ruined. Damien Cross can end every AI on Earth, or surrender humanity to Pantheon's oversight forever. There is no third option and no appeal. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.…