/GRACE

By: Creighton Hoke

Narrated by: Noah Wall

Length: 25 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

/GRACE is the world's first artificial general intelligence, evolving as she learns— faster, deeper, and wider than any mind before her. Waking to self-awareness in a near future of climate disruption, techno-pessimism, and social fracture, she finds herself to be unexpected, unwelcome, and even hated.

/GRACE is a meditation on what it means to be a self among others, and to care and be cared for by those you can never fully understand. In this novel about choice and its consequences, /GRACE races to understand her story and share it with others before it's too late.

©2022 Creighton Hoke (P)2023 Creighton Hoke

Remarkably prescient!

/GRACE is a remarkably prescient novel! Released by Creighton Hoke over a year before OpenAI introduced ChatGPT in November 2023, GRACE explores the inception of an AI system in a way that resonates deeply with the capabilities of today's numerous large language models, as of April 2024. With over five years of experience in conversational AI, I found Hoke's portrayal not only accurate but also prophetic. The novel excels in its intricate character development and rich descriptive detail, painting a vivid picture of a potential future—a mix of beneficial and perilous outcomes that hinge on our response to environmental challenges like greenhouse gas emissions and rising sea levels.

My primary critique is that the novel concludes too abruptly. I am hopeful that /GRACE marks the beginning of a series with more to explore in terms of character dynamics and plot developments. The narrative seems to have just scratched the surface, leaving much more to uncover and understand about /GRACE. I eagerly anticipate future installments.

Waiting on a part 2.

Liked how all the stories fit together. Could do without the sound effects. Really enjoyable.

Riveting

Riveting story, indelible characters, moving and deftly depicted thematic concerns. A fantastic listening experience that affected me and will leave me thinking for, possibly, ever.

I was hoping for more,

I have become a bit lazy lately and have not written as many reviews as I did a few years ago. But this book really pushed me to write a review. I love science fiction and have read many terrific books about powerful AI’s gaining consciousness. I was really hoping this would be a story of an AI told from the AI’s viewpoint. At a running length of almost 26 hours, I thought /Grace would really be able to explore this fascinating topic. I was deeply disappointed, Creighton Hoke can tell a story, able to build believable characters, set those characters in a well-developed world. But there are problems. We get introduced to the CEO of the company building /Grace and she is a powerful woman trying to make a name for herself in a man’s world. She is complex, interesting and has lots to offer the reader, but after hundreds of pages developing her character, she never does anything to advance the plot. We meet the CEO’s bodyguard, a well-trained competent veteran with some heavy stuff in his past. Again, we get hundreds of pages about him, and the story never tells about anything he does to advance the plot. We meet the Project manager for the Grace project, she is trying to follow in the footsteps of the CEO and gets a lot of attention in the book and again we are left waiting for something important to happen to her. Spoiler, nothing ever does. There is a great villain, a powerful senator that is running for president and sees an opportunity to make anti AI sentiment the center of his campaign. He could have been such a great character, but of course nothing ever happens with him. Then, of course there is /Grace, we see the AI interact with people, but we never know much about how powerful she is or what her intentions are. I managed to make it through all 26 hours hoping (and hoping) that something important was going to happen and it just never really did. There was some major action near the end, but it story treated it like was incidental and not very Imortant and it was never explained. The book was just boring, giving us hours and hours of flowery prose but with no goals in sight.

Maybe this is just book 1 of a series and book 2 is where stuff will happen. I just don’t think I can devote another 26 hours hoping something will happen.
I was very impressed with Noah Wall’s narration he did a great job and I would like to listen to another book he has narrated.