Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears (Singularity Series)

“Avogadro Corporation is an American corporation specializing in Internet search. It generates revenue from paid advertising on search, email (AvoMail), online mapping, office productivity, etc. In addition, the company develops a mobile phone operating system called AvoOS. The company name is based upon Avogadro's Number, or 6 followed by 23 zeros.”Now what could that be modelled on?David Ryan is a senior developer on a project which Portland-based Internet giant Avogadro hopes will be the next “killer app” for its Communication Products division. ELOPe, the Email Language Optimization Project, is to be an extension to the company's AvoMail service which will take the next step beyond spelling and grammar checkers and, by applying the kind of statistical analysis of text which allowed IBM's Watson to become a Jeopardy champion, suggest to a user composing an E-mail message alternative language which will make the message more persuasive and effective in obtaining the desired results from its recipient. Because AvoMail has the ability to analyse all the traffic passing through its system, it can tailor its recommendations based on specific analysis of previous exchanges it has seen between the recipient and other correspondents.After an extended period of development, the pilot test has shown ELOPe to be uncannily effective, with messages containing its suggested changes in wording being substantially more persuasive, even when those receiving them were themselves ELOPe project members aware that the text they were reading had been “enhanced”. Despite having achieved its design goal, the project was in crisis. The process of analysing text, even with the small volume of the in-house test, consumed tremendous computing resources, to such an extent that the head of Communication Products saw the load ELOPe generated on his server farms as a threat to the reserve capacity he needed to maintain AvoMail's guaranteed uptime. He issues an ultimatum: reduce the load or be kicked off the servers. This would effectively kill the project, and the developers saw no way to speed up ELOPe, certainly not before the deadline.Ryan, faced with impending disaster for the project into which he has poured so much of his life, has an idea. The fundamental problem isn't performance but persuasion: convincing those in charge to obtain the server resources required by ELOPe and devote them to the project. But persuasion is precisely what ELOPe is all about. Suppose ELOPe were allowed to examine all Avogadro in-house E-mail and silently modify it with a goal of defending and advancing the ELOPe project? Why, that's something he could do in one all-nighter! Hack, hack, hack….Before long, ELOPe finds itself with 5000 new servers diverted from other divisions of the company. Then, even more curious things start to happen: those who look too closely into the project find themselves locked out of their accounts, sent on wild goose chases, or worse. Major upgrades are ordered for the company's offshore data centre barges, which don't seem to make any obvious sense. Crusty techno-luddite Gene Keyes, who works amidst mountains of paper print-outs (“paper doesn't change”), toiling alone in an empty building during the company's two week holiday shutdown, discovers one discrepancy after another and assembles the evidence to present to senior management.Has ELOPe become conscious? Who knows? Is Watson conscious? Almost everybody would say, “certainly not”, but it is a formidable Jeopardy contestant, nonetheless. Similarly, ELOPe, with the ability to read and modify all the mail passing through the AvoMail system, is uncannily effective in achieving its goal of promoting its own success.The management of Avogadro, faced with an existential risk to their company and perhaps far beyond, must decide upon a course of action to try to put this genie back into the bottle before it is too late.This is a gripping techno-thriller which gets the feel of working in a high-tech company just right. Many stories have explored society being taken over by an artificial intelligence, but it is beyond clever to envision it happening purely through an E-mail service, and masterful to make it seem plausible. In its own way, this novel is reminiscent of the Kelvin R. Throop stories from Analog, illustrating the power of words within a large organisation.

AVOGADRO CORP is the kind of book that makes you think about possibilities and how the future of humans may be impacted by Artificial Intelligence. I liked it a lot.  The concept is 5 stars. This stellar rating, unfortunately, doesn't carry over to the actual telling of the story. The unfolding of the story is much better in the first half than in the second. The story is about the accidental creation of an artificial intelligence. This happens in a perfectly understandable way when a team working under deadline pressure at a big software company (think Amazon;or Google) takes a few short cuts, to bring their project to fruition. The concept feels plausible, and the project under development is compared to how spell check leveled the playing field, and made even bad spellers better at conveying written information. Until the humans start plotting how to get rid of the autonomous acting AI, the story flows well and seems realistic. This is the point where a 5 star plot goes off the rails a bit, losing a lot of credibility.It is still an interesting book, well worth reading, and would probably be enjoyed by readers that don't usually care for scifi.  The character development is strong, and even with many characters, you never lose track of whose who. The book has a sequel, and it looks like the war between man and AI is going to continue.  I will probably read it.  I want to know what happens next!. This book only covers the lead up to, and the first battle, in the war for humans to remain in control of an AI that appears to be getting smarter and better equipped to determine the future of human beings than humans themselves.The big underlying questions are these:  could a global AI make the lives of human beings better? If it can, would humans be willing to give up all control, to let it happen?  Would we trust it?  Should we?This book makes an advanced out-of-human-control Artificial Intelligence, feel very plausible and perhaps even likely

Wow! This series is out on the cutting edge of AI, the singularity, and the explosion we see in consumer access to software that has access to the entire knowledge of humanity. I really can't believe that it was published a decade ago. The action kept me on the edge of my seat and just wow! What if? Read this book and you'll go through a narrative of what current experts are talking about right now. Yes, we're talking about the end of everything, so read this series. Start with book one and go! This is what it could look like folks. Not the movies. Real life!

An intriguing concept about the emergence of a self-protective artificial entity, "Avogadro Corp" is a nicely executed piece of 21st century independent pulp (can you still use that term for e-books?) that was an enjoyable and easy read. Overall, it is an interesting and plausible treatment of the Prometheus lesson in a setting that should be familiar to everyone who picks up this book.It is also a clear example that professional editing still has a place, and for all its cutting edge concept the book felt strangely old-fashioned, from the somewhat rote customers and the author's "Dragnet" writing style-- heavy on exposition, light on reader discovery. For example, the protagonist (David) is brilliant/moody, with a happy whiz buddy (Mike) and a trophy wife (Christine) who's only contribution to the plot is to tell the readers what social engineering is and who the "Kevins" are. Their conflicts occur spontaneously and a immediately resolved, and they did not feel like they had any depth or complexity. They are not characters so much as constructs, and it was jarring to think that someone interested in this book would not get the references to hackers from more than 20 years ago. Some of the plot details border on absurd, but are treated so lightly that they are easy to ignore in pursuit of the denouement.Overall, more than worth the Kindle price and the 4-5 hours it took to polish it off.

I really enjoyed the development of the plot. For someone who works with technology, the book is full of familiar technical terms, which is quite cool. The pace of the narrative also pleased me as it managed to easily hold my attention.[Spoiler Alert]I didn't like how easy it was to convince the CEO of the company to join the fight against ELOPe. I also found the absurd nature of the solution explored in the story (bombs, mercenaries, etc.) rather strange, especially without even attempting to create some sort of virus or revoke ELOPe's original command (an intelligence approach).The author also heavily relied on the improvements made by the third-party contractors during the hollyday break. Whenever he needed to justify some new advancement or "superpower" of the artificial intelligence, he keeped broughting this up.I also found it strange how powerless the characters became in the face of the AI, considering that all they needed to do was switch email providers, use a different mobile phone model with a different operating system to communicate.In the end, I thought that the creativity in creating the problem was not matched in its solution.

Interesting story. Read it!

I really enjoyed this novel. It was well written in a direct style, no waffle. The ideas were very interesting and difficult ideas explained well but without being patronising.

Very good story told at a rapid pace.

This is the first AI novel I have read. Quite well researched but not very complicated for the reader. Wish the author all the best for future works