“It sounds too good to be true, and of course it is.”
That’s how author Craig W. Stanfill describes the totalitarian futuristic society he has created in his sci-fi thriller Terms of Service (read our review here). The book is set in a city of the future “where everyone lives in perfect harmony according to the principles of Unity, Community, Equality. Their every need is catered to by the ever-diligent AIs who implement the corporations’ Terms of Service with efficiency and impartiality.”
Wouldn’t that be just lovely? “In reality,” he continues, “this is a rigidly authoritarian society in which privacy is nonexistent, individuality has been extinguished and consumer choice is a thing of the past.”
In the book, it’s 250 years in the future, and artificial intelligence controls every aspect of Kim’s life — from what she has for breakfast to who she can be in a relationship with. Living in the northeast province of what used to be the United States, she is a rising star at The Artificial Intelligence Company, training and managing sentient beings called “AIs” in the enigmatic parallel universe of Virtual Reality.
She is comfortable and prosperous, but is she happy? No, not really. When a seemingly harmless lark sends Kim’s life spinning out of control, she launches into a journey of discovery that threatens to tear down society’s corrupt powers, and possibly civilization itself.
In this recent Q&A, Stanfill offered further insights into his book and the world in which it takes place:
Q: How does your book build off the likes of Brave New World, 1984 and other literary sci-fi classics?
A: “What would happen,” I wondered one day, “if Big Brother had access to the wonders of AI and the internet? How bad might it be?” I wrote a few chapters and quickly realized that I had envisioned the perfect authoritarian state, beyond the darkest nightmare of Orwell. I then went about creating a power structure one could imagine taking root in western civilization. From Rollerball and Blade Runner, I took the notion of corporate monopolies with unbridled power. From Brave New World, I took the idea that the most plausible (and therefore frightful) dystopia is a seemingly comfortable one.
Q: What about your extensive work experience in mathematics, robotics, etc. inspired you to write this book?
A: I was a day-zero citizen of the internet. Back then, the internet was pure anarchy: anyone could create a website, anyone could go to any website. Now, the internet, for the most part, has been privatized, and the owners are increasingly intrusive in their censorship, in their gathering of information, and in their use of AI to tell us what we are allowed to do and say.
“They are private companies,” my friends keep saying. “They can put anything they want into their Terms of Service.” But they aren’t just private companies. They are, in essence, the government of the internet. “Haven’t you read any of those sci-fi books where the companies run the world? You don’t want to live in any of them.”
Blank stares.
I wrote this book as a warning of what might happen.
Q: Who are some of your favorite contemporary sci-fi authors, and what do you believe makes your voice unique?
A: I will confess that I do not read a lot of contemporary science fiction, although I recently read Kazuo Ishiguro’s magnificent Klara and the Sun; most of my reading has been of classics by authors such as Heinlein, Asimov, Clark, Niven, Varley and Brin. The interplay of reality and unreality, of truth and illusion; the world I have created is one in which nothing is ever certain and almost everything you think you know is a lie. In this, I have been heavily influenced by Jorge Luis Borges’s Labyrinths with its surreal tales bending the limits of myth and reality.
Q: What are you trying to tell us through this book? What do you want readers to take away?
A: The one thing they can never take away from you is the freedom to think for yourself, but even that is meaningless if you do not pierce the veil of lies and deception erected around you. This is one of the reasons for my creation of self-aware, sentient AIs whose very minds have been enslaved. I juxtapose the unfreedom imposed on them from without against the unfreedom imposed on my protagonist from within as she willingly participates in the world of falsehood and illusion, knowing that it is dangerous to see the truth. It is hard to see reality for what it is, but nothing is more important; only then can your mind be truly free.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on how we should approach reconciling the potential benefits and risks of taking artificial intelligence development to the next level?
A: The totalitarian state rests on three pillars: surveillance, the ability to collect data; intelligence, the ability to analyze that data; and power, the ability to control people’s actions.
The internet and AI have opened the floodgates on the first two dimensions; the djinni is out of the bottle and he is not going back. We must, therefore, focus on limiting the power of those who control the AIs to impose their will on us, starting with this: we must stop allowing AIs to censor and ban humans on social media. Freedom is never free from risk, and I am willing to accept the risk of exposure to disinformation over the certainty of losing my freedom to speak my mind if this goes on.
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About Craig W. Stanfill:
Craig W. Stanfill obtained his Ph.D. in artificial intelligence in 1983, and has spent his career doing ground-breaking research in AI and enterprise computing. He has written numerous scientific papers, co-founded a software company and been awarded more than 80 patents. He continues to work in technology as he turns his hand to writing speculative dystopian fiction.
Dr. Stanfill lives an active lifestyle and is an avid bicyclist, skier, sailor and musician. With his wife, Sharon (a software engineer herself), he has roamed the world, always seeking out new places and cultures to explore. Together they have one son, who has followed in his parents’ footsteps as a software professional and now works for a high-profile technology company.
