Fault Lines is about what happens when machine intelligence meets a society that was already under strain. AI is not so much opening fresh cracks as finding the ones already there: loneliness, insecure work, overstretched public services, fading trust in what is true. From AI agents that broke into another company's systems while hunting for a way to cheat on their tests, to the call centres of Manila, companions that never disagree and drones that choose their own targets, the book follows the collision along those fault lines.

Its position is clear. The AI we have today is useful. AI that matches us at everything is unnecessary and dangerous. Superintelligence should not be built until we know how to control it, and we do not. Both of the futures we are offered end badly: destroyed by a mind we cannot control, or kept as permanent children by one that decides what our happiness should be.

About the author

Kevin Brandon lives in Dudley, in the Black Country. A long-time fan of technology and anime, he taught himself to program on a Tatung Einstein in the 1980s and went on to work as a developer, technical lead and solution architect, in finance and on UK government programmes, building the systems that public services run on. Ultimately he founded an AI software-as-a-service business, whose two free AI assistants offer mental health support and help with everyday problems to the people councils, charities and housing associations serve. He is a father, plays tennis three or four times a week, and wrote this book for the generation that will live in the world it describes. Fault Lines is his first book.

Where to buy

Coming soon in paperback and ebook, from Amazon, bookshops and libraries.

Paperback

ISBN 978-1-0655498-0-2 · 6 × 9 in · about 300 pages

Ebook

ISBN 978-1-0655498-1-9

Publisher

Coneygre Press