Artificial Wisdom is a jaw-dropping debut that feels like a blaring wake-up call for the audience to appreciate the potential dire consequences of climate change and Artificial Intelligence. At first both subject matters seem to have their own gravitas but it’s the brilliance with which Thomas R. Weaver has connected the two trending topics to create a narrative that may seem to be some decades into the future but whose seeds are very well planted as you read this review. Throw in a murder mystery in the mix and you get a mind-boggling thriller that leaves you unsettled.
Journalist Marcus Tully is out to expose the truth wherever it may be. When a whistleblower reveals a sinister reason for the devastating heatwave that kills millions across the Persian Gulf, including Marcus’s wife, Tully goes digging for what really happened. When the investigation points at the heatwave having been geo-engineered by the then-President of United States who’s now running for the dictator of nation states to solve the climate issue, the stakes have never been direr. But it gets more complicated when the President’s opponent is the world’s first AI politician with skeletons of its own tied to the investigation.
I am pleasantly surprised by Weaver’s ability for speculative fiction. It’s no doubt an ingenious and constantly twisting thriller with machine-gun pacing that doesn’t need explosions or shootouts to keep you gripped but rather the turn of events that make it feel like every other chapter ends on a revelation that keeps you in the spiral of “just one more chapter before I put the book down.” Before you know it, you’re halfway done with the book.
Yet it’s more than a thriller. It’s a highly plausible future given the headlines of the world today. From people dying of intense heat waves to humanity’s propensity for meddling with dangerous technology without fully plotting out the consequences, Weaver capitalizes on each element to the fullest. It mesmerized me the same way 2001: A Space Odyssey did when I first read it, thinking of how fascinated the readers must have been to imagine the near future as Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick presented. Thinking of the future as Weaver writes it fills me with awe as much as dread.
Artificial Wisdom is a must-read that transcends the barriers of genres to relate to different readers whatever their preference may be. It’s a thriller with a philosophical conundrum. The ending isn’t what one would expect and I sincerely hope we get a follow-up because the cliffhanger is too exciting to not be explored further.
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