Avogadro Corp

Avogadro Corp: The Singularity is Closer than it Appears by William Hertling is a near-term technothriller science fiction novel about an accidental creation of an artificial intelligence. The novel is the first installation in the Singularity series and 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 and Forewords Review Science Fiction Book of the Year.
== Background ==
Hertling said that a conversation with a friend in 2010 inspired him to write his debut techno-thriller, which marked his transition from a full-time software programmer to a successful sci-fi novelist. Hertling self-published his entire Singularity series via Amazon (Kindle, Createspace, and Audible). His works show influences from Cory Doctorow, Charles Stross, Neal Stephenson and the classic cyberpunk works of the 80s (Neuromancer, Hardwired, and Snow Crash).
== Plot introduction ==
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. This is a thinly veiled reference to the real-life tech company Google, as its name also refers to a number - a googol.
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.
The program ELOPe is designed to evaluate user responses to emails by analyzing past records of an individual's email communications and cross-reference with similar subjects to predict a tentative probability of success. The more data it garners, the more effectively it could build a successful model of human communications, making it able to write impersonated emails to convince humans to do what it wants. Hertling demonstrates that even when not capable of performing certain tasks on its own, given sufficient data sets, the AI could act as a social engineer to control human interactions.
== Characters ==
* 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 ==
Hertling's debut novel has received positive endorsement from technologists and venture capitalists in the tech industry. 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. Meanwhile, Nathaniel Rutman of Senior Systems Architect praises it as "[a] fascinating, logical, and utterly believable scenario".
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".
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.
Warren Dunn gave the book 4 out 5 scores, commenting that "It was quite scary in its relevance".
== External links ==
* Avogadro Corp at Goodreads
* Avogadro Corp title listing at Institute for Cybersecurity & Digital Trust, Ohio State University
* Discussion of Avogadro Corp by Lee Barron in AI & Popular Culture
* Avogadro Corp review by Brian Barnett
* Interview with William Hertling by Singularity Weblog
Category:Novels
Category:Technothriller
Category:Novels on Artificial Intelligence