The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu – Book

From a Google Image Search – Tor.com

While The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport by Samit Basu is not great literature, this novel epitomizes the discussions of AI that dominated 2023. It also does that thing that sci-fi does so well. It offers commentary on modern and future society and politics.

Shantiport is a once-prominent city with a port that was busy and thriving. It is now a backwater decaying city that has internal problems which keep it in existential danger of dying out completely.

We wonder how we will ever become home to multicultural societies which should be easy for us because we are all humans. Shantiport wants to become a multicultural oasis which seamlessly protects the rights of both humans and bots. The bots seem to exhibit the same propensities as humans for violence, elitism, and tribalism. In this case the Tiger clan is warring against the Monkey clan.

The bot characters are well done and are as appealing, at least those who are main characters, as the human main characters. In fact, we find that those main characters, both bot and human, are a family unit as in brothers/sisters/ancestors. When the “jinn” is recovered from where it was hidden (Aladdin of legend) the one who holds the jinn gets three wishes. If your goal is to restore Shantiport to its former glory and make it a truly multicultural city what would your three wishes be? Be careful, it’s a very tricky jinn.

The same difficulties apply if you are trying to profit personally and don’t really care about the fate of Shantiport. This may not be literary fiction, but it is fun, and inspires thoughts about our own present and future dilemmas.