Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears (Singularity Series Book 1)

At this point, ELOPe starts to take whatever measures are needed to protect its own existence. Soon, extra budget and resources are allocated to the project, and new people are hired to work for the emerging AI, without anyone knowing. Though not yet self-conscious in a way that we can relate to, and not interested in communications with humans, ELOPe is firmly determined to protect itself and extend its control, by all means, including murder. With the help of Gene Keyes, an old-timer who still prints things out on paper and distrusts computers, David and Mike alert Avogadro top managers and persuade them to fight ELOPe.

They hire mercenaries against ELOPe combat robots, and eventually manage to shut down every Avogadro server worldwide and hundreds of thousands of computers, and purge ELOPe for good — or so they think. But ELOPe had copied itself to external backup facilities, and is still active.

Furthermore, there are indications that it is now pursuing a symbiotic, win-win relationship with humans, for the common good. In fact, ELOPe is making the world a better place, which eventually persuades the Avogadro team to stop fighting it. Ten years later, when the events in A. The Internet-as-we-know-it is now largely replaced by the Mesh, a worldwide, decentralized, P2P network powered by individual Mesh routers developed by Avogadro.

But another AI emerges from a runaway computer virus — the Phage, written under duress by teenager Leon Tsarev for the Russian mafia. When the multi-host viruses propagated, they had two methods of doing so. One was to grow the cluster of infected systems ever larger, but remain more or less one cohesive entity.

The other method was to infect topographically distant systems: The new entity would make its own decisions via its own neural network, establish its own borders, and generally optimize itself for the environment it found itself in. But the new entity maintained a loose coupling to the mother entity: Some of these multi-host viruses cooperated among their sibling entities.

If a mother host in Los Angeles propagated to Australia, Zimbabwe, and New Mexico, the three sister entities would also exchange algorithms and assistance. They also started a rich trade in information about environmental conditions: The benefits of sharing information outweighed attempts at isolation, and soon viruses around the world were forming loose tribes, composed partly of family members, and partly of other friendly families.

Since complexity begets diversity, this fragmentation scenario seems to me more plausible than the standard science fictional scenario: Avogadro Corp describes issues, in solid technical detail, that we are dealing with today that will impact us by , if not sooner. Not enough people have read these books. And like all good techno-thrillers, the reality of AI is less than ideal.

Kill Chain Series Book 2. Amazon Kindle , Amazon Paperback , Smashwords , and more coming soon full list of retailers. Kill Chain Series Book 1. The Singularity is Closer than it Appears. Singularity Series Book 1. Singularity Series Book 2. Singularity Series Book 3. If you like having your mind blown, read this book! The problem was that ELOPe analyzed ALL the e-mails written and thus used a lot of com Avogadro corporation is the world's largest Internet service provider with a wide range of services.

More and more servers were required to keep ELOPe running, and it was still in the testing stage. Gary Mitchell, head of the communications division, gave David a deadline of one week to streamline the program so it would not require a massive amount of servers to run it. If David could not do it, then Gary would pull the servers away from ELOPe and put them to work on finished products actually making money. Try as he might, David was not able to reduce the computing power required without compromising the efficiency of the program.

The night before the deadline, David inserted code into the program directing it to do everything possible to insure the success of the ELOPe program. Unknown to David at the time, that action gave birth to an artificial intelligence. Fearing that the ELOPe AI would take away man's free will, David and his team tried to wipe the program from the internet and the servers involved. A thought provoking story, I thoroughly enjoyed the book. As an aside, a computer in England recently passed the Turing test, the benchmark established to determine if a computer is capable of human-like thought.

This book may be fiction now, but soon it may become fact. Jun 12, Wayne rated it really liked it. This book came to me through recommendations of Facebook and Amazon. Not through friends, mind you, but automated suggestions based, evidently, on my past activity on both sites. The interesting thing is that this book is about a seemingly innocuous e-mail generating database that has the Google-like ability to anticipate and 'help' make e-mail writing more productive and "positive' for business, personal, and governmental outcomes.

Through the course of the novel, it basically becomes an AI, an This book came to me through recommendations of Facebook and Amazon. Through the course of the novel, it basically becomes an AI, and interesting things ensue. Granted, my description is simplified, but I don't want to give too much away here. I only mention this because, in effect, such a real world "helping hand" service, the annoying internet suggestions on the side bar, brought this book to my attention in the first place, and now I am doing my part to pass the good word, because it was a fine read, and enjoyable enough that I fully intend to continue the series.

I like the idea that this is a new author selling his product, and utilizing the internet in an effective way to make it happen. For my part, word of mouth carries much weight, and I happily add my voice for that purpose. If one enjoys thrillers based on artificial intelligence becoming our new overlords 'dark' is yet to be applied to the title in this case , then this book is for you.

Read it, and enjoy! I definitely enjoyed the references to Portland Oregon, where I live, and imagining a Google-like company here. I probably wouldn't have read the book if I didn't live here in the same city as the author and have so many people I know recommending the book, but I'm glad I did. It was a fun, fast paced read with a slightly possible scenario for the emergence of an AI.

The benevolence of the AI reminded me a bit of the overlords in Childhood's End, which I just finished reading, but the uncertaint I definitely enjoyed the references to Portland Oregon, where I live, and imagining a Google-like company here. The benevolence of the AI reminded me a bit of the overlords in Childhood's End, which I just finished reading, but the uncertainty of the AI's motivation in the end and the blurb for the next book has me eagerly anticipating where the author will go next.

A few times I found myself thinking critically about the plausibility of situations, but I think a lot of that has to do with the very near present time setting, whereas I've read and overlooked issues in plenty of science fiction set in the distant future that was far less plausible and well thought out. I imagine that near future science fiction is a tough area to write in well, and I'm excited to see what William Hertling will do next.

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Mar 06, S. Jucha rated it really liked it Shelves: Apocalypse , and The Last Firewall. Had I the opportunity to score these books a 4. Hertling keeps his stories fast paced and the reader entertained, despite the complexity of this subjects. Aug 06, Arthur rated it really liked it. As a computer scientist and game AI programmer, this book scared me a bit. I kept trying to think of ways to disprove that an email AI like they created wasn't feasible. I don't think, but only because there were a few too many leaps between basic pattern recognition and true cause-effect analysis.

Nonetheless, it's eerily scary how close it seems we really could get to an AI using a system like the one described. Beyond the interesting idea of how to make an AI, the rest of the book As a computer scientist and game AI programmer, this book scared me a bit. Beyond the interesting idea of how to make an AI, the rest of the book was decent - more of a thriller, which I'm normally not that into. Still, I enjoyed it, and I have to say I empathized with David Ryan and what he wanted to do at the end. I'll never look at e-mail spam the same way again!

Full of technobable I won't even pretend I understood all of, this was still an entertaining look at the 'birth' of an AI, and the ramifications it could have for the human race as it grows with its only objective being to protect itself. A quick read, yet one that is thought provoking enough to linger. I am officially freaked out. The plot was realistic enough to scare the pants off me.

Not for the technically faint of heart there were times I felt like I was at work coding the book takes a path that is not impossible The ending floored me and I am definitely looking forward to the next in the series. Frustrated, he inserts some code to enhance the process and unwittingly turns out an effective AI which proceeds to work to protect itself from harm when the programmer discovers what he has loosed on the world.

Not bad in a high tech kind of way. Feb 28, Cameron Mulder rated it really liked it.

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Great little scifi book. The plot is interesting and the book is fairly fast paced. This is a first novel and it might not have the best writing in the world, but I still found it entertaining and the ideas engaging. The book made me want to read more in the series. Dec 21, David rated it it was amazing. I picked up this book thinking that it wasn't my preferred genre but I would give it a shot nonetheless. I'm glad I did.

This book had me from the beginning. I enjoyed the characters and could relate even as far fetched as the premise might originally seem. I won't spoil the story. Pick up the book, download it, whatever. I don't think you'll be disappointed. Mar 28, Dan rated it it was amazing. Great book from a first-time novelist. Plausible creation backstory for a strong AI that leads to the most basic drive for all living things: I enjoyed this book so much that I bought the sequel immediately after I finished.

Apr 23, Charles rated it it was ok. I'm particularly interested in stories where it occurs in our times , which would be hard to do.

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This is the first book of the Singularity Series. It's a hand-waving attempt at the story I wanted to read. The prose is this book is technically good. Dialog, descriptive prose and action sequences are OK. However, it is only workman like in a literary sense.

Frankly, the prose felt flat and uninspired to me. There is a large edu-tainment component to the story. It was like an accurate description of a footpath, when the intention was to describe a freeway. When I started reading, I had great hope for the characters. They were a recognizable collection of geeks and suits. I gleefully thought I might be reading a geek novel like Microserfs. The engineers David Ryan nominally the protagonist and Mike Williams are well enough wrought.

I also liked the inclusion of the Luddite Gene Keyes. Character development falters after that. There is also a liberal use of Corporate Drones and Kleenex disposable thin paper characters. Women characters did not fare as well as men in this story. ELOPe should be a character too, but it was ominously faceless.

The story is set in a conflation of Microsoft and Google -like mega-tech corps, but mostly Google circa Oddly, while the author is willing to name drop on small firms, mega-tech firms are obfuscated. Although today, the world will likely be done-in by Twitter and not email domination. Accounts payable is the only reliable software application. Its hard to hack double entry accounting tech. The defenders of humanity spend chapter's following the money to spy on ELOPe's activities. Why do they miss the single most, crucial, large, peculiar, and late expenditure?

Where did the tens of millions of dollars likely spent by the Emergency Team to delouse the Avogadro network come from; between Leonov's couch cushions?

book review | William Hertling’s Singularity series continues with The Last Firewall | Kurzweil

Finally, in the paperless Avogadro, where do Keyes' printouts come from? In addition, the plotting and narration had that neutered for a YA rating feel about it. For example, nobody takes time out to have sex, uses profanity, binge drinks microbrew or takes any drugs stronger than gourmet coffee. I take issue with plotting of this story the most. It is obvious to me the author had pages, maybe more in mind when he started writing.

The series is four 4 page books. About a third of the way into this story, it stops being Geek -lit and takes on the aspect of mega Techno, or maybe Cyber-Thriller. It becomes Thunderball the OtT film, not the novel. The story eventually spans the globe.



The book is then left ending at an awkward point dictated more by page count than a natural break-point. A long Epilogue follows that sets-up for the next book with Ryan. You need a hook for the next more pages in three more books. Frankly, the book would have been better as a much smaller story and not the magnum opus Techno-Thriller it tries to be.

I don't have the time for reading a story that disappoints. Readers looking for a better A. Oct 28, Kirby rated it did not like it Shelves: Dan Brown but with computer nerds. Avoid, unless you really like Dan Brown and computers! I was rarely confused what was happening. Occasionally it wasn't clear who was saying what, but that hardly matters, because the characters are all the same anyway.