The Deepfake isn’t a book about artificial intelligence (AI). It’s the story of a young woman, Sylvie, who falls in love with her personal trainer, Rip. Because Sylvie sells AI software, Rip sees her as an advocate. She certainly believes in what she’s selling but hasn’t thought much about the risks and potential danger of the technology. Her trainer is focused on the downside.
Rip’s father was a rabbi, a career path he’s assiduously avoided, at least up to the present, but Rip has been raised with a concern for ethical behavior. He sees Sylvie as a people pleaser, a trait that has its own advantages and risks. Does love conquer all? Well, not exactly.
The capabilities of artificial intelligence, specifically it’s ability to create convincing deepfakes, becomes critically important toward the end of this novel, but in between the first and last pages come business intrigue, family drama, and, of course, romance.
When I started writing The Deepfake, I could find no novels on artificial intelligence on Amazon (there are some now). There was an abundance of speculative fiction on the thrill of future AI, and there were nonfiction books providing education on how AI works. I wanted to write a story that wove in AI because all our lives are now stories with AI woven in. We may not be aware of it, but AI is part of our medical encounters, our transportation, and our individual workplaces.
We may have already benefited from AI’s growing capabilities or been a victim. Some elderly citizens have been the target of scams in which the reproduced voices or likenesses of loved ones beg successfully for funds. It’s not only the elderly who have been scammed. Social media is full of fake political posts that deliberately create harm.
When the pandemic was upon us, some fiction writers ignored it. Some included in their writing the masks and the kids in online school. Now that it’s AI thats all around us, I’m in the camp that says it belongs in our novels. It’s today’s scenery.