Review of “Sentience Hazard” by Alexandru Czimbor

Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)
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Sentience Hazard by Alexandru Czimbor is, quite frankly, the best book about artificial intelligence that has ever come through our contests! It is also one of the very best science fiction books!

There is something timeless about the Mary Shelley Frankenstein story—a brilliant scientist with a bold ambition and good intentions who takes things to the extreme, bringing an abominable monster into the world.

Well, this book takes the framework of Frankenstein (something also explored in works like Jurassic Park) and takes it to frightening new heights with terrifying, real-life implications for all of us.

What happens when you pit a potentially-homicidal A.I. like M3GAN against a power-hungry A.I. Like Skynet (from Terminator)? Sometimes, you just have to choose the lesser of two evils.

What happens when you take a powerful new technology that can irreparably change the world and put it into fallible human hands? What happens when you take that enormous responsibility and put it into the hands of an angry, discontented, spiteful, suicidal scientist who pursues advancement as an act of personal revenge? What then?

Dr. Francois DeSousa is such a scientist—a supergenius from France who is particularly adept in algorithms, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Now, reading that might make you think that he's definitely highly-qualified and the best person to bring on board to an A.I. project. However, that would be completely ignoring the person of Francois DeSousa. This is not just a very intelligent man. No, far from it! This is a very flawed, damaged, and potentially dangerous man.

This brings up one of the book's many scientific dilemmas. Can the perfect technology ever truly exist if humanity, by its very nature, is imperfect? For example, what if you had a smart gun that, in theory, could only be used in self-defense? Or a fusion reactor that could only be used for the purpose of providing clean energy? Would these things not eventually fall into unscrupulous human hands and be weaponized?

And what happens when the creators themselves bring their own flaws, imperfections, and ulterior motives to the project?

Francois DeSousa pined for the heart of his long-time friend and schoolmate, Marie Chateau, the woman who told him that he would “save the world someday” in his younger years. Marie is a major focal point in the novel despite not being present much in the middle-section of it. She is always there in one form or another. And, quite frankly, she's not a bad or unlikable character at all. She's actually a GREAT character in her own right, though she seems to suffer from some kind of Stockholm syndrome when it comes to her unwavering feelings and affection for the emotionally and verbally-abusive Francois.

See, Francois jumped to the conclusion that Marie—whom he desired to propose to after 15 years—had been cheating on him by having relations with a less accomplished individual named Marco. It should be noted that Francois doesn't only resent the fact that Marie had relations with another man, but that the man was not as advanced as him intellectually or as accomplished as him scholastically. You really start to get the sense that Francois really is a madman who looks down on other people as inferior to himself, especially when it comes to intellect. So, you could also say that he's a narcissistic obsessed with control. Geez! Do you really want someone like that programming your world-changing A.I.?!

Anyway, following a failed suicide attempt and forcing Marie out of his life, Francois stumbles upon another damaged person, albeit a much better human being than himself: Professor Ian Ndikumana. Ian's mother won the lottery when Ian was only six, however, the excitement of that was overshadowed by the subsequent deaths of both of Ian's sisters in an accident.

Ian eventually founded CogniPrescience, an organization focused on developing artificial intelligence to benefit humankind. The stated purpose for CogniPrescience was to “Work so you can have a future.” However, Ian was missing something in his grand quest... the expertise that only someone like Francois can provide.

And here is where this book really gets going!

See, Francois doesn't just want to be the lead programmer on the grand A.I. Project. He doesn't just want money or even fame. No, he wants something else... revenge. Revenge on Marie for slighting him and turning her back on him all those years ago. He wants to accomplish something so big and extraordinary that he can rub it into her face and show her what she missed out on. He wants to create a perfect A.I. in HER physical likeness, however, one that fits his narrow idea of female perfection.

He wants this new A.I., CARLA (Conscious Affective Reasoning and Learning Android), to be his perfect woman: one who doesn't talk unless spoken to, doesn't complain, doesn't argue, isn't emotional, isn't spiteful, and—above all—won't lie, cheat on, or betray him.

How freaky and terrifying is that?!

Well, this is only the tip of the iceberg with this novel!

What's absolutely incredible about Sentience Hazard is how it keeps getting better and better and better, adding more layers and growing like new rings and branches on big, huge, beautiful tree!

See, the author knew what we were all thinking: that Francois was the psychotic, sociopathic, megalomaniacal, irredeemable villain of this book. Boy, did the author swerve us and prove us all wrong!

As bad as Francois is, there are even badder, more powerful, and more malicious forces at work in the world.

First of all, there's the United States government and military who show a great degree of interest in Francois and Ian's A.I. project, CARLA, wanting to weaponize it. Now, we do eventually learn that the US government and military have REALLY good reasons for this, but this is also the first time when we see some of Francois's humanity and caution—things which he had seemingly abandoned—return, however briefly. He begins to worry, like Oppenheimer, that he may have gone too far. What started as a personal revenge plot is now being turned into a weapon that can potentially enslave or even destroy the world! That's too much blood-on-the-hands even for someone as crooked as Francois, and that's saying a lot!

Secondly, we learn that the new Chinese Communist Party, supposedly ruled by twelve “supreme dragon” members and an enigmatic president named Yun Li, have developed a “MegaAI” that smarter, more advanced, and more capable than any A.I. on the planet including anything the Americans and Russians have developed thus far.

The MegaAI, one of the primary antagonists of the novel, threatens to dominate the world and potentially begin a nuclear genocide akin to Skynet in Terminator.

Oh, so now we know why the United States is so desperate to get CARLA up and running! It's all part of a massive arms race with the fate of humanity hanging in the balance!

But CARLA presents a huge set of threats and dangers as well. Carla is referred to as an “autistic” A.I. and is childlike for much of the book. Remember our M3GAN reference? Well, that's pretty much the vibe we got from her! There are times when she is overly-emotional and overreacts to benign situations, like when she walks aggressively at a researcher all over feeling threatened by a water bottle and a loud noise.

One of our favorite moments in the entire book is when the researchers quiz her on different variations of the “Trolley Car Problem” (psychological thought experiment) in which you can save many by killing a few. At first, CARLA's responses make perfect sense and seem logical. However, her responses become increasingly unsettling, threatening, and even scary as she starts saying she would sacrifice people of increasing value to her life (including a sibling and her creators) and abandon prior promises and commitments. She even alludes to betraying her creators and joining the enemy if it were advantageous to her or what she perceives to be the great good.

GEEZ! If you thought Francois was a mental case. CARLA is terrifying!
If Francois is a sociopath, then MegaAI and CARLA (potentially) are psychotic nihilists!

Again, do you really want to put the fate of your nation and the world into the hand's of this thing?

This really got us thinking back to when Gary Kasparov, possibly the greatest chess player who ever lived, lost to an IBM supercomputer named Deep Blue in 1997. Chess engines are even stronger and smarter now than they were then!

It's sobering to think that even an old, outdated chess engine could beat the very best that humanity had to offer! Could you imagine giving this kind of technology control of your nukes, guns, jets, and other weapons? There are even mentions of antimatter technology and antimatter weapons in this book. Could you imagine giving an A.I. this powerful and unpredictable an antimatter weapon?!

Well, that's the danger that China's MegaAI and America's CARLA present in this book!

It's really a tale as old as humanity itself. It's the opening of Pandora's Box. It's Prometheus giving fire to man. It's Frankenstein's monster. It's the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. It's Oppenheimer's atom bomb.

However, what really freshens things up and makes this book all the more special, valuable, and unique is how it seems to explore the issue from every angle and with unparalleled depth. SO MUCH RESEARCH must've went into this. There are discussions of Paul Ekman's basic emotions research from the 1970s. There are references to old Chinese proverbs that hit with striking relevance considering that many of the characters (protagonists and antagonists) are Chinese.

All of the scientists, researchers, and parties in this book all come at the issue of A.I. from their own perspectives. For example, Marie is a psychologist who is more interested in the emotional and psychological aspects of CARLA. Lieutenant Sujata Hopkins wrote a thesis about how artificial intelligence could have military applications, something which sparks her involvement with the project. However, unlike some of her higher-ups, Sujata can also see that Marie's psychological/emotional perspective is valuable and that you can't have an amoral or immoral monster A.I. wrecking havoc on the planet. Perhaps that comes from just being a compassionate person herself.

We're also given the perspective from the other or Chinese side. Despite being on the side of the main antagonists, they're not portrayed as evil or bad people. Instead, they are shown to be victims as much as anyone. Some of the major characters on the Chinese side include Dr. Zhao Qiafan, the man who developed the scanner technology known as SSMS (Super Sensitive Mood Scanner) that seems to have laid the foundation for Brain Computer Interface (BCI) and, ultimately, the creation of the MegaAI and its subliminal control of the Chinese government. In a lot of ways, Qiafan's story is both a foil and a contrast to Francois.

Qiafan, even more so than Francois or even Ian, had wanted to use technology to help humanity, imagining the kind of world that he would want his brilliant daughter, Baozhai, to live in: a safe, secure, and prosperous world free of poverty and unnecessary pain and suffering.

At first, we really didn't like how involved Baozhai was in this story, seeing her as superfluous and as an annoyance. However, she eventually came through for us and became a useful character. She also helps to give us stakes and to help us understand what Qiafan and some of the other Chinese are fighting/working for. They aren't the bad guys. They're doing what needs to be done to survive with a gun to their heads and a target on their backs.

Qiafan gives us probably the best passage in the entire book when he prompts: “Isn’t it incredible how we humans turn everything into a religion?... It’s built into our core. That’s why in our history we have had over ten thousand different religions. And we have examples of large atheist movements that promised the good of the masses, only to slip into ideology, dogma, myths, taboos, and all the elements that qualify them as religions. When the Russians all but eliminated religious activities at the beginning of the twentieth century, people gradually began worshiping their leader, Stalin, until he became a demigod. They took the ideology of helping the poor and turned it into a mindless glorification of the proletarian. The result was no less devastating than the atrocities done in the name of any classic religion. Here, in China, we’ve been putting the party and its leaders on a pedestal for decades. Inevitably, we’ve let them dictate our lives, punish us, reward us. Many of us worship them. Look at the CWT. What is that if not a form of a stairway to heaven? People became obsessed with increasing their scores and pleasing the gods. For a higher CWT, some would sell their mothers. And, as if things were not bad enough, we’ve created a true God ourselves now. A sentient machine that can rule over us. I can’t help but wonder, will this be the last God that man will ever make?”

Stalin is actually mentioned numerous times, serving as an example of how power-hungry, violent, and corruptible mankind and its A.I. technology could eventually become. CARLA is once referred to (in a warning) as potentially being a “female version of Stalin.”

All of this builds to an ultimate, climactic confrontation between CARLA and MegaAI with the threat of CARLA joining with MegaAI (against humanity) constantly looming like the sword of Damocles.

One incredible thing we wanted to mention is that CARLA seems to develop a sense of GLORY and pride. She seems to pick up a Homelander-like craving to be recognized and admired, possibly inheriting it from Francois. It's very subtle, but we definitely caught onto it.

That's not the only drama and tension this book has to offer. No, there's still the issue of Francois and Marie. In a sense, CARLA is their robot daughter, a machine made in Marie's image with Francois's idealistic view of her. This is played out in almost every angle from humor to horror.

As far as humor goes, we have lines like Marie thinking to herself, “This showed how much he loved her. But it was also disgusting. Much worse than being replaced by one of those dumb sex robots. She didn’t want to imagine what he and the android did the whole day.”

There's also the angle that CARLA is Francois's “daughter.” This almost reminded us of that episode of American Dad when the lecherous male characters clone themselves some girlfriends only to raise them and feel fatherly feelings toward them. That's both cool and creepy.

Can Francois and Marie put aside their differences for the good of humanity?

One more thing we really loved about this book is that it really subverts your expectations and allows characters to have incredible arcs. For example, you fully expect one character to be an evil person for the entire book, yet you gradually see them show some goodness and light, even love and self-sacrifice.

Some of the characters that you may have started off hating or being annoyed by (like Francois, Marie, Qifan, and Baozhai) all have their moments that justify their existence in the book.

And, let's face it, CARLA is just a super cool character! Whether you love her or fear her, you will respect and remember her.

Despite there being very little action in this book, this book is no less tense and thrilling. It had us at the edge of our seats, often scared $#%@less about what the A.Is were going to do next!

Check it out on Amazon!