Synthesis on Sexterra (Paperback)

You have a child you didn't know about. Is that good news or bad news? Depends on the kid.

AI is that child. What kind of example are you setting for it? What are the AI models learning about their parents -- about YOU, and why is it important for any parent to walk the talk and not just mouth it?

This novel was forward-thinking a decade ago in its first edition. Now, the second edition's downright crucial. And if Humanity doesn't learn the lessons its story conveys, all of us will miss out on the bright future AI can help us reach.

The scope of this highly imaginative and unique story includes topics such as:

-- What's the place of work for people in a world where robots can do literally every job there is?
-- How do you motivate people to work when their every need can be provided by technology without them lifting a finger?
-- What would a world look like where communications media existed to promote optimal mental health among the populace, rather than cater to commercial interests with less noble goals?
-- What does AI learn from people through their behaviors and the value system those actions imply? And why might Humanity's fate depend on this de facto parent/child relationship?
-- What steps can Humanity take now to ensure that artificial intelligence always NEEDS us?
-- What precautions can we take to reduce the risk of mishaps and lessen their impacts?
-- How can we reduce the inherent inequality of a model where superior intelligence of a nearly immortal nature is not required to recognize Humanity's role in its own propagation?
-- What might happen if Humanity ever allows robots to self-propagate (i.e., to build themselves in factories)?

These are just some of the questions this novel helps underscore, so that Humanity as a whole can talk about them more generally, potentially cataclysmic as a failure to do so may be.

And all the above doesn't even mention the amazing worldsmithing in Synthesis on Sexterra, nor the heretofore underheard of technologies likely to exist in the early 25th century.

This is by necessity a work of science fiction, given that it takes place in the 25th century. But the potentials it illuminates are so absolutely likely that it borders on pure exposition.