I AM AI
Forthcoming June 20, 2023
“Moving, brilliant, and certified 100% human. Moments from now, this book will break, steal, and win your heart.” —SAMIT BASU, author of Turbulence
If you had the opportunity to give up humanity for efficiency, mechanical invincibility, and to surpass human limitations. . . would you?
Ai is a cyborg, under the guise of an AI writing program, who struggles to keep up with the never-blinking city of Emit as it threatens to leave all those like her behind.
Chinese Translation forthcoming in 《外国文艺》by Geng Hui 耿辉
Praise for I AM AI
Included in BOOK RIOT’s “20 MUST-READ SCI-FI NOVELS ABOUT AI”
“Moving, brilliant, and certified 100% human. Moments from now, this book will break, steal, and win your heart.”
—SAMIT BASU, author of Turbulence
“Ai Jiang is one of the most exciting new voices in the field, and I AM AI shows exactly why. This is an unsettling vision of the future of creativity. If it doesn’t bother you, then you need to check where your imagination went.”
—JOHN WISWELL, author of the Nebula-winning “Open House on Haunted Hill”
“Ai Jiang’s “I am AI” is a timely critique of the relationship between the human emotions underpinning the desire to create, and the increasing automation of the creative arts. Sharp, pointed, and prescient.”
—ISABEL J. KIM, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author
“To be human is to create. But in a future where artificial intelligence controls all creativity and humans are merely disposable tools, what would you sacrifice to chase your own dreams? “I Am AI” is an unflinching science fiction masterpiece that’s essential reading to understand where today’s world could be heading.”
—JASON SANFORD, author of Plague Birds and finalist for the Nebula and Philip K. Dick Awards
“A well-crafted and timely cyberpunk novelette about toxic productivity, community and humanity, I AM AI takes the seeds of increasingly tech-enabled late stage capitalism that currently pervade our world and extrapolates them just far enough to show us the divide-by-zero errors at the core of it all. In so doing, Ai Jiang reminds us of our own hearts, and of the things that matter most, the things that make our hearts sing.”
—WOLE TALABI, Locus and Nebula award nominated author of Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon
“I AM AI is a terrifying, prescient, and prophetic story set in an alarming future that, if we’re not extremely careful, might be lurking right around the corner. It’s required reading for every human being that cares about art, writing, love, family and the creative life that makes us human.”
—KAREN OSBORNE, author of Architects of Memory
“I Am Ai is gripping, thrilling, and emotionally engaging. Right from the start, Jiang had me invested in her characters and the world, with a rare perspective on the disadvantages of cyborgs and augmentation. Jiang’s writing is economical, understated and impactful, with the world building and backstories all seamlessly integrated into the storytelling. An important dialogue in the current debate on the employment of Artificial Intelligence in the production of intellectualest output, I Am Ai is a brilliant tale of humanity in a heartless corporate dystopia, where friendship and found family offer some respite from r uthless capitalism and divisive commercialism. A thoughtful exploration of what makes us human beyond our consciousness. It was such a delight to read science fiction originated in English that embraces such diverse characters of colour and queerness. I Am Ai is an emotional journey simultaneously universal, and grounded in the Asian experience, down to the all-healing, magical power of soup.”
—XUETING C. NI, author of Sinopticon: A Celebration of Chinese Science Fiction
“I AM AI is a tense, lean narrative that thuds along like the compulsive, essential beat of one’s heart. Jiang has something to tell us in this story beset by a dystopian future where the boundaries between real and artificial are blurred: to strive is to be human, and therefore we must cling tight to wanting.”
—EM X. LIU, author of The Death I Gave Him