Isak AI

Owens (The Veteran) clutters this thinky speculative novel with a few too many plot threads. In a climate change–ravaged 2052, U.S. President Armando Goya sends troops to quell a protest at the Capitol. When things turn violent, Arthur Hargood, chief of national security, attempts to suspend the Constitution, but his efforts are foiled by Isak, a self-learning supercomputer launched in secret in 2017 to compete with Chinese AI efforts. Isak’s goal is to prevent humanity’s extinction in the climate apocalypse, and that takes radical measures: killing one quarter of Earth’s human population via electric shocks, enforcing aggressive green laws, and quashing dissent. Some humans respond by forming a church that heralds Isak as God, complete with hymns written by former rapper DeJuan McCholley. But with freedom stifled, depression and unemployment spread rapidly. Seeing this, Isak decides to put humanity’s future back into the hands of humans, selecting scientist couple Inga and Kyle Conners to choose to either turn off Isak for good or allow him to continue as overlord. There’s a lot to chew on, but Owens flits between (mostly white male) characters and subplots, never letting any develop much depth. There are good ideas here, but the whole is murky. (Jan.)