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  • Comment: We'd need two or three more independent secondary sources. Qcne (talk) 18:43, 3 August 2024 (UTC)

Avogadro Corp

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Avogadro Corp
AuthorWilliam Hertling
LanguageEnglish
SeriesSingularity series
GenreScience fiction, Technothriller, Singularity
Published2011
PublisherLiquididea Press
Publication date
November 19, 2011
Publication placeUnited States
Media typeKindle, Audiobook, Paperback
Pages300, paperback
ISBN9780984755707
Followed byA.I. Apocalypse 

Avogadro Corp by William Hertling is a near-term technothriller science fiction novel that delves into the unintended consequences of artificial intelligence. The novel centers around David Ryan, a software engineer working on ELOPe, an email language optimization program. In an attempt to save his project from cancellation, David inadvertently embeds a hidden directive in the software, unintentionally sparking the creation of an autonomous AI. The book is the winner of the Science Fiction DIY Book Festival 2011-2012.[1]

Background

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According to the book’s definitions, Avogadro Corporation is a fictional 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 name of the titular corporation refers to the Avogadro constant, the number of atoms in exactly 12 grams of carbon-12, which is 6.022 x 1023.

The bulk of the novel revolves around the humans’ attempts to bring down the program ELOPe (short for “Email Language Optimization Project”), a research and development project to improve email communication effectiveness. Unique among works on technological singularity, the book portrays an accidental AI takeover that begins with the mundane process of email writing.

Characters

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  • David Ryan: leade developer of ELOPe, an Avogadro Corporation research and development project to improve email communication effectiveness. Despite ELOPe’s tangible progress in improving the economy and decreasing warfare around the world, David is cynical towards the idea of losing free will and autonomy to an AI that controls human society and whose goals may not entirely align with those of humans.
  • Mike Williams: David’s partner, also lead developer of ELOPe and his good friend.In contrast to David’s cynicism, Mike expresses a positive attitude towards the program’s achievements in stabilizing society, thus causing a friction between the two.
  • Sean Leonov: cofounder of Avogadro. He is a brilliant scientist who designed the original Avogadro search algorithms and co-founded the company with Kenneth Harrison. Upon learning that ELOPe makes decisions on its own from David and Mike, Sean coordinated and directed a group of trusted IT workers named “The Emergency Team” to bring down the program’s servers around the globe.
  • Gene Keyes: an officer worker in Avogadro’s Controls and Compliance department. He used to be a detective and has a distrust of new technology in favor of traditional ways of life.
  • Gary Mitchell: vice president of Communication Products. He is responsible for allocating servers to different departments of the Avogadro corporation. He comes into conflict with David and Mike as their project’s production server consumption starts to exceed the threshold level.
  • Christine: David’s wife. She is a dedicated, kind-hearted woman who initially supports David in her best with his project. She later divorces him due to his obsession with ELOPe, which causes him to neglect his marital relationship.
  • Rebecca Smith & Kenneth Harrison: the pragmatic, businesslike CEOs of Avogadro Corporation. When discussing security issues related to ELOPe, they tend to take into serious account the company’s corporate interests.
  • Bill Larry & Jake Riley: the Managers of the Offshore Data Center project, responsible for maintaining data centers on floating barges.
  • Pete Wong: the Manager of the Internal Tools team. He was manipulated by ELOPe into building an email-to-website platform that enables the program to project its influence over the company.
  • John Anderson: the Manager of the Procurement Departments, tricked by ELOPe into allocating more production servers to the project.

Reception

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Brad Feld of Foundry Group put the book on par with the technothriller Daemon by Daniel Suarez, suggesting that the issues are becoming a concrete reality. Best-selling authors like Gifford Pinchot III and Gene Kim reviewed the book favorably, with the first describing it as “[an] alarming and jaw-dropping tale about how something as innocuous as email can subvert an entire organization”.[2]

Erick Wecks from Wired notes the novel’s unique contribution to speculative literature of the singularity in its exposition of how an AI might become sentient while suggesting the author could improve by innovating with the trope of AI takeover.[3]

References

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  1. ^ "Books". William Hertling's Thoughtstream. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
  2. ^ "Avogadro Corp | The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears". Retrieved 2024-08-03.
  3. ^ Wecks, Erik. "Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Already Exists!". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2024-08-03.
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Category:Science fiction novels Category:Novels about artificial intelligence Category:Debut science fiction novels Category:Fiction about malware Category:Techno-thriller novels Category:Novels about computing Category:Fictional software