ISAK: AI

ISAK AI

Imagine a self-learning computer created and launched in 2017 where this story begins. It is launched in secret to compete with Chinese AI efforts but why will it take five years to launch? Isak is unique and its goal is to prevent humanity’s extinction in the climate apocalypse. It will require a huge number of resources, over the top measures and killing one quarter of earth’s human population in a painful and horrific way enforcing aggressive green laws and doing everything to stop anyone that wants to go against this and stopping any dissent. Moving ahead to 2052 we meet President Armando Goya who is forced to send troops to stop at protest at the capital. When things get highly volatile Arthur Hargood the chief of national security attempts to suspend the Constitution, but his efforts are thwarted by our self-learning supercomputer. 

The story changes gears when we meet Kyle Connors, his wife Inge, Jim Shire and we learn about the issues with client control, the depletion of the fish, lack of oil, food and water rationing and then the protests at the capital by ordinary people that want the government to do something so they can live a normal life. 

Lives are taken, food sources rise, fish are more plentiful, and an AI named ISAK has taken over the world telling people and government how to life, eat, walk and survive in his world as he sees it and justifies his actions, changes and takes lives at random to lower the population rate and level. This is frightening as he meets the President, justifies his actions and changes and wants him in office as a figurehead and spokesman for the public, he declines leaving him with Wesley Wright who wanted to be President hoping he will be his press secretary. 

The novel introduces ISAK AI and he controls every walk of life, food, oil, industry, he even has Wesley Wright as his emissary and press secretary that gives interviews and tells the public what ISAK wants and intends. In 2007 two men Tomlinson and Greentraub decided to use their scientific intelligence and create an AI self-teaching computer that using the power of technology and as the novel progresses you learn the power of ISAK, how he eliminated one fourth of our population, his rationalizations, how he used Wright and others to spread his word. There is a young man that became a writer and prophet and spread his word. Then came a self-realization that the AI had, and the world would change again. Authors could not author short stories; they were too busy watching television. People red books but their attention span was shorter. Could artificial intelligence be program itself. It  could and did so all the time> How far could they go? Humans had to adjust to Isak, and they had no choice, but some found it hard the deaths increased at times and the environment improved in some areas and in the end some did not. ISAK appears as a hologram when he wants to make his presence known. Wright is used for public relations and then there is Kyle and his wife Inge. He loves the ocean, and she is a geologist and they both must make a life altering decision. They flee for a while before coming to their decision but when Kyle makes it what happens will shock readers, Kyle and you wonder if he will survive. What was ISAK’s intension? Let’s not forget the many churches of ISAK and their different ideologies and of course the result of the president of the United States, what about his nomination? What happens will change the way the world is run; will it bring back the freedoms they had before? What happens if Kyle decides to make his decision what happens to ISAK? What is mental transference? Would you want to take the place of an AI as the author created a plot that allows readers to wonder whether this can happen or not? AI intelligence is not new, but would you want to live in the world he created that is run by an AI that can hear your thoughts, change your destiny and know your every thought, move and move? What happens when you can no longer use technology? Read ISAK AI and you decide for yourself after you get to know him better, hear him talking with the public, making his degrees, learn about Kyle and Inge and you decide: what is the dilemma of free will? A creatively written novel that gives you reasons to ask yourself many questions about life, liberties, government and how you would react to living under the rule of an AI that is so powerful, no emotions and can do more than any human. What would Kyle say, Inge or even Dorothy, Jim’s wife say if they could talk to you now? 

Fran Lewis Just reviews