Book Review: I AM AI (2023)
Shortwave Publishing
(this review is spoiler-free.)
In my assessment, Ai Jiang is among the foremost emergent speculative fiction authors today: she has a narrative style marked by instinctive wit, hard-won humanity, and an keen understanding of the emotions which are more often endured than outwardly expressed. Her stories are like deep water, holding depth their blurb or summary does not immediately give away, and her characters are clear-voiced and complete. She’s one of those rare authors with a distinct creative throughline that underpins each work, and writes with confidence as an author in full control of her narrative’s intentions. She’s the type of early-career author that gets critical voices excited, showing new wrinkles and steady improvement with each publication.
Old World, New Era
I AM AI is a science fiction novelette about a young woman, Ai (yes, just like the author), who lives in a ramshackle complex built beneath a bridge at the edge of a fantastic futuristic city called Emit. An adult orphan whose parents worked to build New Era, the megacorporation that effectively governs Emit, Ai labors unblinkingly as a freelance writer to pay off the debt she inherited from her family. She has replaced parts of her body with mechanical implants and low-grade cybernetic augmentations that allow her to work more efficiently than a natural human. Ai also serves as the localized power source for her impoverished under-bridge community, with neighbors drawing power her to operate bluetooth devices, power drones, and keep salvaged clocks ticking.
Ai immediately felt both sympathetic and recognizable, carrying the dual burdens of family mediator and community caretaker, not unlike adults who must take responsibility for elderly parents in the midst of rearing their own children. Her city, Emit, is a hyper-capitalist futurescape where monopolistic corporations control society from the top down, and people are economically divided into sharp striations which all labor in support of the same oppressive system. Emit is a troubling because it feels but a few decades removed from what we see today in many Western cities, where skyrocketing rents and paltry wages push many underprivileged people into an endless and seemingly inescapable grind.
Heart in the Machine
In Emit, most creative works are done by AI products, and Ai poses as a cut-rate and uniquely human-sounding artificial intelligence application that writes stories, articles, white papers, and other pieces for subscribers to her service. Despite the realities of the setting, Emit is a society where there remains a persistent hunger for authenticity and humanity, be it a housekeeper who can sing (as opposed to a music bot) or an AI that sounds a bit less practiced. Thus, Ai maintains a niche in the market among those who appreciate both her discount service fee and distinctly less-polished style.
In addition to paying down her inherited debt, Ai saves money to purchase additional upgrades which will allow her to work more efficiently, such as a processor for her brain or electronic heart replacement that will minimize her need for sleep. Not to put too fine a point on it, but her situation is not unlike an Uber driver who works extra shifts in order to buy a more reliable or fuel-efficient car, only in Ai’s case she is quite literally giving up her flesh and blood in the name of greater productivity.
The story opens with Ai rushing to Mao Tou Ying, a internet cafe/work co-op of sorts where she both completes her freelance work and charges the batteries on her mechanical components. She soon learns of a uniquely lucrative contract with a looming deadline that could serve as both a path to her desired cybernetic upgrades and simultaneously wipe out a large portion of her debt. Ai accepts, and the story is off and running as she tries to balance the demands of the contract against the needs of her community and herself.
Authentic Intelligence
For me, I AM AI was less about the nefarious creep of technology and potential negative impacts of generative artificial intelligence than it was about a very realized, widespread hardship that is already well-proliferated today: the near-inescapable compulsion to sacrifice our innate desires and personal ambitions in the name of financial prosperity or security. It’s a monster which wrangles our reptilian brain and makes us forget ourselves, grinding away the peaks we aspired to as we enter adulthood until we summit comfortable plateaus of compromise. In the story, Ai is so far removed from her own heart that she’s ready to give it up–quite literally–in the name of being able to pay off debt sooner. That is so sad, and yet so familiar.
Uncountable creatives of recent generations have lost themselves in the pursuit of making ends meet, of exorcizing student debt, of finding a bit of high ground against the economic pressures that beset them. It is hard to remain true to the person you are in your most honest state as the years and obligations accrue, and nothing about this world apart from the small spaces we preserve for our ever-diminishing aspirations keeps us afloat. In the story, Ai is less someone losing pieces of herself to technological enhancements as she is to exterior obligations, slowly sacrificing her personal awareness for the sake of escaping the challenges into which she was born.
Not only does Ai Jiang impart beautiful human representations to her work, but she is an exceptional worldbuilder, and despite a low page count, the city of Emit and life under New Era feel as realized as anything from comparable science fiction narratives. I feel that so many authors struggle with this, often overdressing a fantastical setting, but Jiang seems to get it just right here, and I found myself wanting to know more the city, its people, the history that recounts the rise of New Era, and so on.
One final note of praise, I really appreciate and admire how both here and in other works Ai Jiang just drops non-binary characters in as normal parts of her stories. She doesn't have to resort to cringey overdescription or asides to the reader to make sure they noticed a non-binary character exists…she just puts them in and lets the story continue, almost as though these people are a natural part of the world and don't have to treated like unicorns. More authors should learn this easy, inclusive approach.
Final Thoughts
Ai Jiang imparts a gentleness and an element of human empathy to spectacular settings in a way few authors working today can. While the descriptions of places and practices she provides form a sketch in my mind, I can instinctively understand the human relationships presented in her story, which is at once about the commoditization of creativity and how it intersects with technological developments that are taking the creative process further and further away from creators.
Verdict: 9.1/10
Strengths
Solid prose, telling a complete story concisely
Connects effectively with real world struggled
Like everything else she writes, there’s a great deal of authentic humanity here
Weaknesses
I have no significant criticisms; Ai Jiang just needs to write more
You can pick up this title on Shortwave Publishing, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or preferably, though a bookstore in your community.
You may also like: Linghun, Collage Macabre,
