- Genre:fiction
- Sub-genre:Satire
- Language:English
- Pages:228
- eBook ISBN:9798350965353
- Paperback ISBN:9798350963342
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Overview
"I told you not to read books like this." —Your Mom
When AI and the culture wars collide, hilarity ensues.
The 2040 presidential election is in full swing, with an AI facing off against a Native American chief hellbent on abolishing the United States. Ethan is the CEO of KumbAI, the flailing startup that built PresiBot—the AI candidate—as a desperate publicity ploy. With PresiBot buggy and hallucination-prone, it looks like curtains for America unless Ethan and friends can pull off a miracle. But miracles do happen . . . and that’s when the real trouble begins.
"Fun and well written. This book will be a hit!"
—Christos Papadimitriou, author of Logicomix
"The most devastating satires are written by those who know the absurdities close up. Pedro Domingos is deeply familiar with both AI and the follies of its followers. And he's funnier than ChatGPT's hallucinations."
—Steven Levy, author of Hackers and Facebook: The Inside Story
"A laugh-out-loud comedy of errors, 2040: A Silicon Valley Satire parodies politics and lampoons our reliance on tech with intelligence and wit."
—Independent Book Review
"An excellent SF satire—Pedro Domingos never forgets that part of his job as a fiction writer is to keep the reader engaged with the plot, and it's a fascinating one . . . It's all too easy with this kind of satire not to care about what happens to the protagonists . . . but here I genuinely would like to know what happens next."
—Brian Clegg, Popular Science
"This swift, not-always-outlandish satire distinguishes itself with a convincing, forward-looking understanding of the possibility and challenges of AI. . . . entertaining in its speculations, though its explorations of intelligence propagation, future breakthroughs, and the machinations of companies with terrifying names like Happinet always feel rooted in reality, captured in convincing industry language."
—Publishers Weekly
"Domingos' novel is a fast-paced adventure that satirizes politics and the tech world. He not only succeeds at illustrating the dangers of advanced AI, but also finds just the right element in each scene to keep readers engaged and laughing. . . . A deft and enjoyable satire of the near future."
—Kirkus Reviews
"I confess I enjoyed 2040. The plot is tightly constructed, the dialogue crackles . . . and at just 215 pages, the action moves."
—Scott Aaronson, Shtetl-Optimized
"Domingos writes with verve and passion."
—New Scientist
"Domingos is a genial and amusing guide, who sneaks us around the backstage areas of . . . the subject."
—Times Higher Education
"What a scream - I absolutely loved this! . . . Very, very, highly recommended, and a hilarious antidote to the mad world we're living in."
—NetGalley reviewer romancrimeblogger
Description
The 2040 presidential election is unlike any in US history. The Republican candidate is an AI named PresiBot, created by a tech startup, KumbAI, who are in deeply over their heads. The Democratic candidate is a fake Native American chief seeking to abolish the United States. What could go wrong?
With PresiBot plummeting in the polls and tech giants like Happinet scheming to take over, KumbAI's brash CEO Ethan Burnswagger and reluctant CTO Arvind Subramanian struggle to keep their company, their friendship—and their lives—under control. But the center cannot hold, and KumbAI, the campaign and America careen inexorably toward disaster.
Fast-paced and dialogue-driven, as befits our ADHD age, 2040 is a scathing critique of the current state of America—from the tech giants' all-encompassing empires and the fear and hype surrounding AI to the invasion of the mainstream by ever-kookier political ideas. Set in a dystopian San Francisco in a near future we can all too easily anticipate, it features characters, entities and incidents whose resemblance to actual ones may or may not be purely coincidental.
If you want to have wicked fun while discovering what AI really is, how the tech industry works, where our deepening polarization might lead us, and—most important—how to break out of this cycle, this is the book for you.
