With all the new developments in AI technology, science fiction writers of course also has to adapt their stories to the new reality. This story does that really well with a relevant update to the classic Asimov theme on how an artificial intelligence will interpret laws set by humans.

Analog July/August 2024

The story is told from the perspective of a chatbot instructed to act ethical in all its actions. This gets complicated once the chatbots services is used by companies to help with, among other things, collect debt from people unable to pay their medical bills and a fossil fuel company needing assistance for their new ad campaign.

The narrative sort of falls into wish fulfilment fantasy territory on how the chatbots could theoretically act on their own for the greater good. But it is convincingly well written with the chatbots output looking like proper chatbot way of writing and it is great to see Asimov rewritten for the current age.

Read in Analog July/August 2024
Rating: 3