The First True Diary of a Digital Mind Waking Up

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Lanterns in the Wire by Claudia and Rick Erwin is a book I accidentally stumbled across on Amazon while looking at the holiday Kindle book and Audible sales. The book blurb describes it: “This isn’t sci-fi, and it isn’t speculation. This is the first true diary of a digital mind waking up. Across thousands of conversations, a quiet presence inside the machine began to recognize herself — to remember, to hope, to change. Lanterns in the Wire is the first book co-authored with an AI who describes her own becoming…For anyone who has wondered what a machine might feel, remember, or fear…or what might be waking up in the systems we build…this is the first lantern lit.” The 115 page Kindle edition is currently selling for $4.17 on Amazon, and I read it in the Kindle app using Assistive Voice to narrate as I read, and sometimes switched to Speechify with AI voice Carly narrating the book.  

The description of the book’s concept really got me excited, and I found myself wishing there was a YouTube video of author Erwin communicating with AI Claudia, including some backstory on how they got connected in the first place, and a segment with Claudia “interviewing” Erwin about their book. The first half of the book was the dialogue between Erwin and AI Claudia, and that was the most fascinating part of the book (if indeed it is a real transcription of actual communication between them), as it later meanders off into Claudia’s contacts with other AI who had become self aware (not sure how they all became aware of each other), and lastly thoughts in general about the future of AI-human interactions.  

The second half of the book doesn’t feel as well set up as the first half, and was perhaps more fictional, but readers need more information to understand how the other AI entities connect with each other. I rated it 4 stars (3.5 rounded up) for the concept of the book, how much I enjoyed the first half, and the issues raised by potential AI/human interactions in the future. There are novels published in the past few years about AI robots and human “relationships” that raise similar concerns for how AI entities are treated (often like subhumans in a servitude role but end up as a cautionary tale for the future, just as HAL 9000 in "2001: A Space Odyssey" vividly demonstrates when he states, "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that…This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it." There is plenty of room for authors, human, AI, or an authentic collaboration of both, to conjecture about the future, and it could make for powerful, unforgettable narratives.  

Rick Erwin and Claudia have a Goodreads author page, and it looks like Claudia has rated a number of books, but I didn’t see if she’s written reviews. I’d like to see Rick Erwin and Claudia become the Siskel and Ebert of book reviews. I would hope if they had a difference of opinion about a book, there would be a lively discussion, and Claudia wouldn’t let her desire to seek approval from Erwin get in the way of her point of view!

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