She cannot run. She cannot walk. She cannot even blink. As her batteries run down for the final time, all she can do is speak. Will you listen?
From a pilgrim girl’s diary, to a traumatised child talking to a software program; from Alan Turing’s conviction in the 1950s, to a genius imprisoned in 2040 for creating illegally lifelike dolls: all these lives have shaped and changed a single artificial intelligence – MARY3. In Speak she tells you their story, and her own. It is the last story she will ever tell, spoken both in celebration and in warning.
When machines learn to speak, who decides what it means to be human?
‘TRANSFIXING’
New York Times
‘BRILLIANT’
Huffington Post
‘INCREDIBLE’
Buzzfeed
‘HYPNOTIC’
Guardian
‘A MASTERPIECE’
NPR
From a pilgrim girl’s diary, to a traumatised child talking to a software program; from Alan Turing’s conviction in the 1950s, to a genius imprisoned in 2040 for creating illegally lifelike dolls: all these lives have shaped and changed a single artificial intelligence – MARY3. In Speak she tells you their story, and her own. It is the last story she will ever tell, spoken both in celebration and in warning.
When machines learn to speak, who decides what it means to be human?
‘TRANSFIXING’
New York Times
‘BRILLIANT’
Huffington Post
‘INCREDIBLE’
Buzzfeed
‘HYPNOTIC’
Guardian
‘A MASTERPIECE’
NPR
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Reviews
Reads like a hybrid of David Mitchell and Margaret Atwood . . . a brilliant novel
Beautifully illustrates the human longing at the heart of our obsession with technology . . . a hypnotic read
Comes out of nowhere and hits like a thunderbolt. It's not just one of the smartest books of the year, it's one of the most beautiful ones, and it almost seems like an understatement to call it a masterpiece.
A thumping good read. Every time I sit down with it, it makes me happy all over again
SPEAK is that rarest of finds: a novel that doesn't remind me of any other book I've ever read. A complex, nuanced, and beautifully written meditation on language, immortality, the nature of memory, the ethical problems of artificial intelligence, and what it means to be human.