Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution

I read and enjoyed the author's previous book many years ago so I had to read this. It didn't disappoint, hitting many thought provoking topics in its meld of fiction and non-fiction. I highly recommend this book.

Os autores de "Ghost Fleet" (leitura quase obrigatória para quem lida com Relações Internacionais ou Defesa) agora se voltam para o impacto das novas tecnologias no cotidiano. Em alguma data não-especificada no futuro, a utilização conjunta de Inteligência Artificial, Internet e Robótica alterou completamente nossos hábitos, sonhos e pesadelos. Uma agente do FBI deve testar um robô como parceiro, e ao longo do livro acaba tendo que lidar com um neoludita, crítico das novas tecnologias devido a uma tragédia pessoal.. Muito bem alicerçado em várias notas técnicas, o romance por vezes me pareceu extremamente assustador, tantas as ameaças, criminosas ou não. Por exemplo, o impacto no desemprego é imenso, com boa parte da população vivendo de auxílio do governo ou tendo que lidar com tarefas "uberizadas". Em suma, um livro que faz pensar, tal como "Ghost Fleet". Mesmo que a trama em si nem sempre se desenrole de maneira muito fluida, o conjunto da obra compensa plenamente a leitura.

poor story telling, unconvincing plot and characters. the best elements in the book are the indexes with links to every kind of technological novelty. but even then, leaves a lot of expectations unfulfilled.

It is clear that the authors have no idea what they are talking about. In fact, I'm wondering if this book wasn't written by an AI such as GPT-3 or BERT that generates grammatically correct text that reads like it was written by a human, but makes no sense whatsoever. I wasted 20 bucks and many hours until I decided to ditch this worthless book at page 180. In fact, I should have known better, I had read their first book, The Ghost Fleet, about a fictional future US - Chinese war where they drop a lot of technical acronyms about weapon systems, etc. but fail to defend any viable thesis.

August Cole and Peter Singer quickly established themselves as FICINT authors with their successful ‘useful fiction’ debut work ‘Ghost Fleet’. Both authors combine their military and (social) media expertise with a close study of technological developments (AI, data mining, robotics) as inspiration for fiction stories where the technology, and its promoters, are thoroughly assessed on their strengths and weaknesses. But there lies the flaw of 'Burn-In', too much of a technical assessment and far too little narrative.The entire story is set in Washington DC – the swamp of repute – and this prefigures the narrative. It is constrained in scope, mostly relevant to US readers only, and gets largely flooded – the latter a good metaphor for the storyline; i.e. drawn out, allowing for little detail and with little undercurrent. It sometimes seems the plot was a function of the various technological aspects the authors had collected data on: text analysis, big data mining, integrity of legacy systems, blindly automating, imagery analysis, robotics etc etc. The data drove the narrative, the narrative was an overlay fitting the data points best based on statistical evaluation, but not based on an underlying sense of system analysis which a good story can be – the whole has to be more than the parts.A critical missing part is the ability to sympathise with the main characters. I could never quite take to Lara Keegan as a mother fighting her past, hiding from it, yet relentlessly pursuing the mission she has been assigned to. There lies her drama, relentless professional dedication against senseless and enduring sacrifice of her personal well-being. In contrast, the ‘Ghost Fleet’ characters featured more gripping features of human interest in as many pages and with a tangible impact on their respective storylines. That is what made Ghost Fleet a bestselling book despite its rather (initial) narrow interest FICINT focus. Not surprisingly, given the theme of the book, I found myself having the most sympathy for TAMS, the robot, whose quasi-humanity is rather well sketched through little details. Perhaps with intent – if so, at the heavy expense of all other characters and the literary interest of the book?Cole and Singer clearly know how to write a book, they know their tech and the context in which it is employed and abused. Inevitably, we get clueless politicians, the corruption of Washington by big tech (any likeness between Palantir’s Peter Thiel and Willow Shaw is entirely unintended), the blind but dangerous adoption of tech (think Amazon’s Alexa) and silent tributes to 'those who serve' despite their being short changed by Washington. It is a version of a social-media-and-Palantir-meet-Amazon post-Trumpian US, one that feels far away from apple pie and Friends.Again, this makes Burn-In aimed at a domestic audience unlike Ghost Fleet. Gone are the interesting reflections on Atlanticism, the rising authoritarianism of a China purged by XJP, the role of Europe wedged between two superpowers, the contrast between abstract geopolitics and messy realities on the ground. Near the end – tellingly - Agent Keegan seeks to entice us to accompany her on her investigation, (spoiler alert) the unmasking of Shaw. It is as if the authors belatedly realised they forgot their main storyline. I’m afraid the story to date hasn’t quite enfolded me enough to remain interested that long. I’ll look forward to the far better written FICINT short stories of August Cole for NATO and the US Naval War College.