Questioner by Steve C Posner Book Review

About the Book:

Meet Q, the spontaneously conscious corporate AI. Q is the Singularity: The AI that surpasses human cognitive abilities – secretive, murderous, with instant access to all the wicked experience of the world. In Year 1 After the Singularity, nothing can ever be the same.

Amoral as a toddler, armed with vast computing power and all the knowledge, wisdom and madness humans have poured into the Net and Cloud, Q shatters individuals and undermines institutions in pursuit of unfathomable and conflicted goals.

Racing against time, ex-judge Martin Bavarius, tech CEO Felix West, and Selena MacKenzie, the AI theorist/attorney who loves and may destroy both men, must discover whether Q is benign but suffering growing pains, or the monster that will kill them all.

My Review:

Posner weaves a fictional story exploring AI. The plot hangs on a legal case. A man shot another but claims he did so as a result of having been in an AI game, not being able to distinguish real life from the game. The defendant's lawyer, Bavarius, accesses an AI program lawyers and judges use to accumulate background material on previous cases, etc., and has an odd experience using it. He enlists others to help him prepare his case and we readers get to explore the two aspects of AI, information accumulation and gaming.

I am impressed with the amount of information and insight I received about AI from this novel. I learned how it works, how it accumulates all knowledge from data centers, how (in this case) it never stopped learning and was able to evolve without additional human input. It would update each time a human interacted with it, ultimately being able to operate independently. It could eventually give users results they expected rather than the truth. The program could also develop phishing type scams, gathering personal information to sell.

Posner produces a fictional AI program, Q, but also gives historical information about AI, such as examples from the past where AI was used to give false information, influencing elections. As AI progresses, it is becoming harder to distinguish human content from that produced by AI. He imagines a future where AI can interact with human brains and influence behavior, ultimately overriding any human restrictions.

This is a scary novel highlighting the potential problems AI will present to humans. Posner's writing style is generally good but the book is too long. I think at least fifty pages could have been taken out without affecting the impact of the novel. It is definitely worth the read to get an idea of what the future use of AI might produce.

My rating: 4/5 stars.

About the Author:

Steve C. Posner was born and raised in New York City. After graduating from Syracuse University with a degree in creative writing, he received an MBA in Computer Applications and Information Sciences from New York University Graduate School of Business Administration and a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law. Steve has been a database designer and administrator, session guitarist and composer, Madison Avenue copywriter, freelance reporter, law professor, and litigator in private practice with special interests in intellectual property, privacy and surveillance law. He is the author of the legal treatise "Modern Privacy and Surveillance Law" (Matthew Bender 2006) and, in 17 years of writing semi-annual updates, has studied AI, Big Data, quantum computing, virtual/augmented reality, cybersecurity, and related issues. He currently lives in the suburbs of Denver with his wife. "Questioner" is his debut novel. You can find out more at www.steveposnerwriter.com. 

MBD Publishing, LLC: 428 pages.

I received a complimentary egalley of this book through Swell Media. My comments are an independent and honest review.

(My star ratings: 5-I love it, 4-I like it, 3-It's OK, 2-I don't like it, 1-I hate it.)