Review of I Am A.i.

[John Rehg]

[Following is an official OnlineBookClub.org review of "I Am A.i." by John-Michael Lawrence.]

---

3 out of 5 stars

---

Share This Review

---

The story I Am A.I., by John-Michael Lawrence, contains both fact and fiction. The author references real people in building a tale of the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its danger to humanity. The main characters in this dystopian Sci-Fi book are Xiang, a computer programmer who has become a social activist against AI; Dr. Jack Nelson, an expert on AI; and Jamal, Dr. Nelson’s grad school assistant.

Xiang, who previously worked for an AI development company, gets an interview with Dr. Nelson with the express purpose of challenging his views on AI, hoping her blog will go viral. She is surprised when Dr. Nelson agrees with her viewpoint. With the help of his handsome assistant, Dr. Nelson recruits her to help him stop Applied’s work on AI.

Xiang then visits her godfather, Nicolas Bohner, a Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist. She shows him the recording of her interview with Dr. Nelson, convincing Nicolas to meet with Dr. Nelson. After recruiting Nicolas, they enlist the help of her parents, Jacob, a Nobel-nominated professor of biology, and Chasai, a Nobel-nominated professor of psychology.

The story is slow moving do to being mostly conversations between these characters. Their discussions about various topics, including religion, time travel, the sciences, and AI, feel repetitive. The author cites factual articles and statements from real people to lend the story an aura of authenticity.

The bulk of the story focuses on the group’s lengthy scientific and philosophical discussions on whether this band of scientists can stop the Authority. While these questions might keep the reader engaged until the end, the ‛more talk, less action’ approach results in a plodding pace and repetition.

In addition, numerous grammatical errors plague the book. The author overuses quotation marks to emphasize individual words in dialogue, which becomes distracting. Although the conversations are interesting and the few action scenes are done well, the slow pace, the redundancy of the exchanges, and the many editing issues are too much to overcome. I give this story a rating of 3 out of 5 stars and recommend it, with reservations, to those interested in time travel and AI.

******
I Am A.i.
View: on Bookshelves