This follows straight after Qiankun and Alex in The Best Science Fiction of the Year - Volume 7 and it is also about a teaching AI.

The story follows Ahmed, a professor at a university in India teaching creative writing. Management has decided that an AI can basically replace human teachers, and Ahmed is tasked with “showing it the ropes”.

Published only 3 years ago this is barely science fiction anymore, as educational institutions across the world has to deal with AI technology one way or the other. The story here is very much sort of “on the nose” when it comes to its message on why it is a terrible idea, and it is really hard to disagree here. However, I did become slightly annoyed at the lack of nuance and complexity in the presentation here. To its credit though, there is an interesting twist or unexpected turn of events in the end, that I didn’t actually see coming and in a way reverses the indiscreet tone of the rest of the story.

Can’t really make up my mind about this, but it is worth reading

Read in The Best Science Fiction of the Year - Volume 7, edited by Neil Clarke
Originally published in Slate
Rating: 3