Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution

by P.W. Singer

That was the easiest way to tell which had a human at the wheel; machines knew not to waste their energy on emotional inefficiency.

“As that thing flies over to deliver its beet juice or spare charger or whatever, it’s just soaking up data to mine and sell.

But that was the thing about anger—once you got organized around it, it could never be satisfied.

About the only thing you could immediately tell was someone’s income and age. The oldest and poorest had their heads down, staring into their screens, while the virtual territory was dominated by the young and wealthy, staring vaguely into space as they experienced a personalized reality through their vizglasses.

In a fragile world of convulsive poverty, conflict, and environmental catastrophe, there was only one way for humanity to survive: to create, to build, to surpass.

“A burn-in is defined as ‘the continuous operation of a device, such as a computer, as a test for defects or failure prior to putting it to use,’” answered the machine.15

Think of it not as artificial intelligence but augmented intelligence.

Automation had always seemed a problem just for truck drivers or factory workers, until suddenly it wasn’t.23 It turned out that not even a Yale Law degree could compete with the algorithms.