I read this series ages ago; when I got it through an Image Humble Bundle, I decided it was worth a reread.

The art isn’t bad, and the basic ideas of the series are interesting, but it’s remarkable how much generative AI has kind of ruined what the series could be.

So much of this reads differently now: the premise of people seeking companionship in sycophantic robots, the secondary premise of people being convinced that there’s true intelligence behind the scenes just waiting to be unlocked, the idea of “robots rights” in a society that’s skeptical of artificial intelligence. What would have been pretty standard scifi 4 years ago now hits differently, feeling like an allegory for the most delusional parts of pro-AI advocacy.

So, I dunno. I’ll keep reading it, and I know it’s not fair to read my frustration into a story that predates that nonsense, but it’s wild how much generative AI has really changed the landscape in this way.

• Jonathan Luna
• Sarah Vaughn
• generative Ai
• AI
• Alex + Ada