Authors Electric

The UK government is currently pushing ahead with a policy to give staff the right to switch off outside normal working hours. Whether you agree with this policy or not, I believe it addresses a much bigger issue that is slowly but surely imprisoning us all in a virtual world of artificial intelligence. There is a general assumption, especially among the internet generation, that we are all online 24/7, ready to dance to someone else's tune at a moment's notice, with no real life of our own. Whether we are having 'fun' online, or we're there for 'work' - and I use those terms loosely, since they are not separate entities - we are still in danger of becoming slaves to the machine. Jaron Lanier's 2018 book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now  explains in frighteningly clear terms the ways in which these platforms are manipulating our behaviour and changing us as human beings. When you consider he published this book before the...

Roz Morris In Roz Morris'  Lifeform Three , the robots have purple hair and maintain a futuristic theme park known as the Lost Lands, where various Lifeforms are kept for the enjoyment of their human visitors, who tour around the perfectly-groomed fields in driverless vehicles taking photos and playing on their 'Pebbles' (a type of smartphone). I spoke to author Roz Morris about her thoughtful and entertaining SF novel which, with the rapid advancement of technology in recent years, feels as if it might be only just around the corner. Katherine: I think this is the first book I've read where all the main characters are robots. Your bods are obviously programmed for certain tasks in the Lost Lands, and yet your hero (or possibly heroine?) Paftoo comes across as a very likeable and realistic character. Did you find his/her story easy to write? Roz: He was a challenge, yes. I wanted him to be like an intelligent child - perceptive and curious, and aware that his world had...