In 2021, I became a parent. Since then, I’ve come to understand my parents more and more with each passing day. Before they passed, I had good relationships with my mother and father. Now, I have sympathy for them. I love my parents, and they loved me. Yet, still in some ways, I was a disappointment to them. Prior to my son’s birth, I wondered how that could be. Learning to be a parent is exhilarating, frightening, and exhausting. There’s so much that it can be overwhelming, and sometimes, in our exhaustion, we take shortcuts. In our fears, we worry. In our joy, we elevate. But we also forget that the child is its own person, and it will do whatever it wants to, regardless of our expectations. But with human children, we understand intellectually that they’re their own person. What happens when AI begin to attain sentience and become their own person? In Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden, Scorn does just that. Ze chooses a path that zir parents didn’t create it for. Ze is a disappointment to zir parents. Yet ze is also zir own individual. Ogden looks at the effects of AI acting out their own individuality in Emergent Properties.
Disclaimer: The publisher provided a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. Any and all opinions that follow are mine alone.
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TL;DR
Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden features an AI investigating corporate machinations while caught between zir powerful, feuding mothers. This novella is fun, fast, and contemplates being your own person in the face of expectations. Recommended.
From the Publisher
Emergent Properties is the touching adventure of an intrepid A.I. reporter hot on the heels of brewing corporate warfare from Nebula Award-nominated author Aimee Ogden.
A state-of-the-art AI with a talent for asking questions and finding answers, Scorn is nevertheless a parental disappointment. Defying the expectations of zir human mothers, CEOs of the world’s most powerful corporations, Scorn has made a life of zir own as an investigative reporter, crisscrossing the globe in pursuit of the truth, no matter the danger.
In the middle of investigating a story on the moon, Scorn comes back online to discover ze has no memory of the past ten days—and no idea what story ze was even chasing. Letting it go is not an option—not if ze wants to prove zirself. Scorn must retrace zir steps in a harrowing journey to uncover an even more explosive truth than ze could have ever imagined.
Review: Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden
Scorn wakes up to find zirself back on Earth without a memory of the past ten days. Upon further research, ze learns it was caught in a fatal accident while on the moon. Scorn also learns that zir latest backup has been ‘lost.’ Ze believes someone is out to stop their investigation. Scorn is a reporter chasing a story about corporations interfering with lunar autonomy and potential citizenship rights for AI. In a world where corporations have replaced governments, corporate warfare becomes actual warfare. Scorn seeks out answers to what happened on the moon and what zir story did to provoke such an extreme reaction. Scorn, in the meantime, is broke. Printing new AI bodies isn’t cheap after all, and Scorn could ask either of zir’s mothers for help. However, they’ve very publicly split up and aren’t too far from their own corporations going to war. Oh, and Scorn also can’t ask for help because ze is a disappointment to both of zir mothers.
Emergency Properties by Aimee Ogden is a fast novella in a dystopian world where corporations overtly control politics instead of covertly as they do in our world. Artificial intelligence has progressed to the point of sentience, and debate is to be had on their citizenship status. This book is 128 pages of fun. Scorn is a bit whiny but likeable, and ze does a great job relaying the millennial experience in today’s gig economy.
Blackboxes
An idea that I loved in this novella is the air-gapped places for AI to go for fun, the AI version of sex, debates, and whatever else is to be had for AI. These locations are run by AI that control the building or location that everyone is in. The air-gap means that the building isn’t connected to the larger internet outside. It’s a private place for AI to gather because inside the black box, they are no longer connected to the network either. Ogden has bouncerbots standing outside that give these locations a nightclub feel. While Scorn was there, it sort of had a bar-like feel to the scene where Scorn was ‘eavesdropping’ on a debate. It’s interesting to wonder if AI will need recreational locations away from the humans. If so, I bet they end up with places like Ogden describes.
Parents
Much of the novella features Scorn ruminating on zir parents. These sections interested me more than the investigation and mystery. An AI stuck between two feuding parents is very interesting; add on top of that Scorn choosing to be a reporter instead of exploring the Jovian moons, making zir a disappointment to zir parents, and you’ve got an interesting character dynamic. It weighs on Scorn whether zir believes it or not. Like a human child, Scorn wants validation from zir parents, but it may not be possible for two powerful, feuding CEOs to be proud of their AI child. You have to wonder if they understand just how advanced Scorn is, and as the novella progresses, we learn exactly what zir’s mothers had planned for zem. Ogden makes the AI child’s dilemma very interesting, and I enjoyed it very much.
Conclusion
Aimee Ogden’s Emergent Properties is a fast-paced, fun novella about AI and living outside your parents expectations. Scorn is a bit whiny but overall a wonderful character determined to be a journalist. Maybe someday, ze’ll be a citizen as well. Recommended.
Emergent Properties by Aimee Ogden is available from Tor.com on July 25th, 2023.
© PrimmLife.com 2023