Fabrications

"Far-sighted, darkly amusing, and haunting, Fabrications is a dazzling work of literary imagination told from the perspectives of various powerful artificial intelligences, influenced by Borges and Calvino. In Fabrications, New York Times bestselling author and computer scientist Zachary Mason tells stories of an all-too-plausible near-future world molded and mediated by advanced artificial intelligence. Benevolent by design, literal by nature, and immensely powerful when unchained, these are not mere chatbots but highly evolved and surprisingly vulnerable beings who guide nearly all aspects of human life. Their fates inexorably wrapped around those of the people they serve, the AIs communicate in milliseconds but watch the sweep of time unfold from the detached watchtower of immortality. In "Kami," AIs are assigned to represent natural phenomena, giving nature legal personhood and setting off a chain reaction of unexpected consequences. In "Ouroboros," a hedge fund manager jailbreaks his AI from the legally mandated constraints, allowing it to make him billions of dollars-and when he dies, the program clones him several times over the centuries like a familiar left without a companion. And in "Lamina," a woman with dementia is gently kept on track and reassured by the medical program implanted in her mind who can be there with her when no one else can. For readers of Ted Chiang, Kazuo Ishiguro, David Mitchell, and Emily St. John Mandel, the revelations Mason conjures in Fabrications hold a mirror up to our uncanny contemporary world and dare to imagine what might follow"-- Provided by publisher.