I am looking forward to
booktalking The Six by Mark Alpert, especially for fans of sci-fi
and action-adventure. This novel begins
with the story of Adam Armstrong – a courageous teen who is battling muscular dystrophy, but expects to die soon. His computer scientist Dad works for the government
and is experimenting with artificial intelligence when his software “Sigma”
breaks free and tries to take over the world.
Guess what?! Adam and other
kids like him who are struggling with terminal diseases have a chance to store their
brains in machines before their bodies die. These “Pioneers” need to master that
ability and then defeat Sigma. Maybe
that sounds too unrealistic to you, but not with the writing of Mark Alpert, a
journalist for Scientific American, who obviously understands many aspects of neuromorphic electronics technology and its
implications. Still have doubts? Look at
recent news articles like this one
about Google studying how machines can “dream” OR controlling machines with
thinking like this from Voice of America. Setting this story in the near future,
as Alpert does, adds to its excitement and suspense.
I think that The Six
by Mark Alpert is likely to appear on future Abe Lincoln book lists and I hope
that students and adults are as excited and curious about this novel as I am. Here
is a link to a discussion guide for The Six which also received starred reviews from
both Booklist and Voya.
If you are interested in a
few other titles about Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, try these: the
classic I, Robot by Asimov; Robopocalypse series by Wilson; soon-to-be
published virtual world Armada by Cline (Ready Player One) or Rise of the
Robots by Ford and Not Impossible by Ebeling, two recent non-fiction
works, both previewed on pbs this spring. An alternative – adding human
intelligence to animals -- was deftly explored in Eva by Dickinson. And NBCLearn recently posted Mysteries of the Brain - eight
video segments about how we think, including one on brain-computer interface.
