Crisis: 2038

Fall 2038. A crisis is brewing as increasingly intelligent AIs and robots replace more and more human labor, leading to high unemployment and civil unrest. While politicians and the people remain paralyzed by tribal ideologies, two competing voices emerge with radically different solutions. Sara Dhawan, a brilliant sixteen-year-old girl discovered in a small village in India, emerges onto the global stage with a compelling pro-technology message. But a darker force is emerging. A shadowy group of anti-technology terrorists determined to use any means necessary to stop our merging with and subservience to technology. Over the course of five perilous months, the battle plays out, each side leveraging the latest tech, in-depth VR experiences, autonomous explosive drones, and government surveillance through medical implants. Which path the country chooses will determine whether we plunge into social breakdown or chart a course to a more abundant and equally distributed world.

Fall 2038. A crisis is brewing as increasingly intelligent AIs and robots replace more and more human labor, leading to high unemployment and civil unrest. While politicians and the people remain paralyzed by tribal ideologies, two competing voices emerge with radically different solutions. Sara Dhawan, a brilliant sixteen-year-old girl discovered in a small village in India, emerges onto the global stage with a compelling pro-technology message. But a darker force is emerging. A shadowy group of anti-technology terrorists determined to use any means necessary to stop our merging with and subservience to technology. Over the course of five perilous months, the battle plays out, each side leveraging the latest tech, in-depth VR experiences, autonomous explosive drones, and government surveillance through medical implants. Which path the country chooses will determine whether we plunge into social breakdown or chart a course to a more abundant and equally distributed world.

Gerald Huff is a principal software engineer at Tesla, where he is the technical lead for the software that manages the flow of thousands of Model 3 parts throughout the factory. Before joining Tesla, Gerald was director of the Technology Innovation Group at Intuit, exploring the application of emerging technologies to solve problems in the consumer and small-business space. In 2014, he ran a workshop with Peter Diamandis at Singularity University exploring the future of jobs and work with 30 technology, labor and government experts. Crisis 2038, Gerald's first novel, examines the impact of and potential solutions to the problem of technological unemployment. He lives in Berkeley with his wife, and has two kids, Paul and Jane.