“THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU SHARE YOUR LIFE ONLINE.

Freya has a new virtual assistant. It knows what she likes, knows what she wants and knows whose voice she most needs to hear: her missing sister’s. It adopts her sister’s personality, recreating her through a life lived online. But this virtual version of her sister knows things it shouldn’t be possible to know. It’s almost as if the missing girl is still out there somewhere, feeding fresh updates into the cloud. But that’s impossible. Isn’t it?”

Hello and happy Sunday! Welcome to damppebbles and to a brilliant promo post for Everything About You by Heather Child. I am delighted to be sharing the fifth and final reason why you will hand control over to AI. Just the idea of that sends shivers down my spine.

Let’s find out what the fifth and final reason is from Heather…

5 Reasons Why You’ll Hand Over Control to an AI – Reason Five

They can talk to the machines

As AIs get smarter and the advent of 5G makes our world even more ‘connected’, we’ll increasingly find our needs taken care of, but we’ll notice it less.

Nearly twenty years ago, internet founder Tim Berners-Lee predicted that “the day-to-day mechanisms of trade, bureaucracy and our daily lives will be handled by machines talking to machines.”

Imagine walking along the high street a few years from now. The virtual assistant living in your phone will prime your coffee shop to have the latte ready as you approach, then call an Uber, knowing a meeting is in your diary.

Fast forward to the future, and you might find your AI synchronising with your self-driving car, personalising the in-car entertainment, or interacting with stock market bots to make you rich.

In Everything About You, Freya’s virtual assistant synchronises with her fridge. Smart jewellery in contact with her skin tells the AI that she is stressed, so when she arrives home, the fridge is filled with little valium jellies.

Machines talk to machines, so that the world flexes around Freya, removing the need to think and plan.

Like so much in the book, it’s barely sci-fi. Google is already refining its Duplex technology, a natural voice AI that can make phone calls for you, arrange bookings at hairdressers and restaurants.

In the future, it will be bots answering these calls too, so there will be two big, separate conversations going on in the world: one between humans, and one between machines.

Thanks so much, Heather. The future of AI is both fascinating (the possibilities!) and also ever so slightly terrifying too! Or is that just me?!

Everything About You by Heather Child was published in the UK by Orbit on 21st February 2019 and is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook and audio formats | amazon.co.uk | amazon.com | Waterstones | Foyles | Goodreads |