Adrian Tchaikovsky keeps us science fiction reviewers very busy. I recently reviewed Alien Clay and now he (and I) are back with Service Model. While on the surface the two books have nothing in common, they both return to familiar Tchaikovsky themes of the frailties of human bureaucracy and the difficulty we have in seeing beyond the human perspective. In Alien Clay it was conceiving an evolutionary pathway vastly different to ours, in Service Model it is how best to program artificial intelligence; human vs binary intelligence.
What Is Service Model?
The premise of Service Model is intriguing. A robot, born to serve, has killed his master. As the novel opens, Charles has nobody to serve, yet he continues to do the same tasks over and over. Laying out a suit, planning his master’s travel itinerary, and checking with the house AI that the lady of the house has no additional tasks.
We soon learn that something is very wrong in Charles’s world. His master never goes out. The lady of the house hasn’t been seen for years and nobody misses his master, even though he’s dead. When Charles realizes that it was he who murdered his master, he calls the authorities. The authorities arrive, but they too are confused AI; robots that repeat the same routines by rote, whether they make sense or help the situation.
Charles soon finds himself cut off from the house and sent to “diagnostics” to discover how he managed to murder his master. Here he will meet another, peculiar, robot called “The Wonk,” who talks of something called “The Protagonist Virus.” The Wonk sets Charles on a journey of discovery. We are left to wonder, has Charles become sentient? The answer to this question will form much of the novel’s pages.
Charles voyages across a broken landscape. A world filled with helpful AI gone horribly wrong. What caused it? Is there any hope left? If there is hope, much of it stems from Charles’ interactions with The Wonk. The Wonk turns up repeatedly, checking how Charles’ journey to self-enlightenment is progressing. Charles’ and by extension, the novel’s destination will surprise you.
Why Read Service Model?
Service Model highlights one of the major pitfalls of humans designing artificially intelligent systems. The closest way I can come to describe it is that AI designers must struggle with replicating the 3-dimensional, multi-sensory, experience of real life, using something that can only work in two dimensions. Our world is full and nuanced, while computers deal in two-tone binary. The result is something both comical and disastrous.
Like many Adrian Tchaikovsky novels, Service Model is a slow burn. The continuing absolute logic of Charles’ processes throws up some hilarious consequences, but it was tiring to keep parsing the logic of his artificially intelligent protocols. It is 100% worth the effort though. As you read, you start to think and see the world like Charles does. Reading the novel, deeper immersing yourself in Charles’ existence, becomes a pleasure. Then, as with many Tchaikovsky novels, you begin to see the absurdity of the world we have created (or are on the verge of creating).
Beyond that, as the novel enters its final third, Tchaikovsky subtly subverts his premise, culminating in a worrying examination of the difficulties of designing AI. Are hyper-focused tech-bros the right people to be creating our future? Once again, Adrian Tchaikovsky has created a deeply thought-provoking novel, that makes us question our assumptions about the world in which we live. Arguably, the defining attribute of science fiction writing.
Most readers of science fiction and GeekDad, probably feel they are comfortable with the advent of AI. Probably think they understand it and are on board with its potential. Service Model, in the tradition of Black Mirror, shows us alternative possibilities. The things that can go wrong. There is no disastrous intent here, no evil genius behind the fall of the world. Just well-intentioned, logical inferences that build up to calamity.
Service Model is not what I imagined it might be. It is not a techy police procedural with a helpfully, hilarious clone of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. (Ok, this is an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, I didn’t really think it would be that last bit.) There is humour suffused into the story but the novel has a very serious point. We’re on the verge of creating a brave new world, and we need to be very careful about how we go about it. Mistakes, however inadvertent could have terrible consequences.
If you would like to pick up a copy of Service Model, you can do so here, in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate Links)
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This review has been part of the Service Model blog tour. Do check out these other reviews!
I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.
