num_pages: 336
description: A thoughtful poignant novel that explores the creation of Artificial Intelligence  illuminating the very human need for communication connection and understandingIn a narrative that spans geography and time from the Atlantic Ocean in the seventeenth century to a correctional institute in Texas in the near future and told from the perspectives of five very different characters Speak considers what it means to be human and what it means to be less than fully alive. A young Puritan woman travels to the New World with her unwanted new husband. Alan Turing the renowned mathematician and code breaker writes letters to his best friend's mother. A Jewish refugee and professor of computer science struggles to reconnect with his increasingly detached wife. An isolated and traumatized young girl exchanges messages with an intelligent software program. A former Silicon Valley Wunderkind is imprisoned for creating illegal lifelike dolls.Each of these characters is attempting to communicate across gaps  to estranged spouses lost friends future readers or a computer program that may or may not understand them. In dazzling and electrifying prose Louisa Hall explores how the chasm between computer and human  shrinking rapidly with today's technological advances  echoes the gaps that exist between ordinary people. Though each speaks from a distinct place and moment in time all five characters share the need to express themselves while simultaneously wondering if they will ever be heard or understood.
language: English
title: Speak
publisher: Ecco