New Books: 2 March 2021
(Simon & Schuster/Saga 978-1-9821-4806-5, $27.00, 416pp, formats: hardcover, ebook, March 2, 2021) Science fiction thriller about artificial intelligence, sentience, and labor rights in a near future dominated by the gig economy. There’s a great deal going on in Machinehood, from Divya’s sophisticated critique of a post-privacy gig economy to her evident expertise in AI systems, ‘‘weak AI’’ digital assistants, nanotech, and prosthetic body modifications. Individually, none of the tech extrapolations are particularly new, and Divya on occasion lapses into clichéd dialogue (‘‘...