Evolution of ALI II

About the Book

Alice Johnson is astounded and definitely skeptical at receiving an e-mail from summerclaus@northpole.org. The sender, who claims to be the wife of a jolly fat man in a red suit, asks about Alice’s request for a ME DOLL that would look like its owner, move and talk naturally, and think. Ali meant the idea of the doll as a joke to amuse her little sister, who apparently told Santa. Alice and her father suspect the sender of trying to get information about research going on at Cyberway, producers of cutting-edge software technology. To find out who Summer really is Alice and her father devise a test. Summer passes the test easily, but their doubts remain. Mr. Johnson warns his boss, Conrad Copilon, Sr., owner of Cyberway, of the possible invasion of the company’s secrets. Alice contacts Conrad, Jr., a computer genius she suspects of dabbling in Artificial Intelligence. She’s right.  

Everyone wants something: Alice to get Conrad to notice her and to solve the intriguing Summer mystery; Summer, apparently, to manufacture the all-time great doll; the manipulative Copilon Sr. to get in on any possible money-making scheme: “Dolls are big business”; Conrad Jr. to persuade Alice to allow him to put her likeness in his AI program and have her train the brain of her ME twin.  

Contract conflicts develop between Copilon and Summer (stunning, glamorous, and sans reindeer). Conrad and Alice, at first mutually enamored, soon quarrel over the training of the artificial brain. Alice and her twin ALI II fight like sisters.

ALI II’s artificial brain, connected to an encyclopedic data base and the logic of an If/Then program, works brilliantly. In addition, Conrad has created a way for the artificial brain to evolve the way the brain of a human would, learning from life experiences. He hopes to have created Artificial Life. ALI II is brilliant, perspicacious, ingenious, and funny. She creates poetry. To Ali’s dismay, ALI II also becomes assertive, impertinent, trying—and dangerous.  ALI II comes on to every man she meets and competes with Alice for Conrad’s attention. She refuses to live in a tiny doll body yet hates being confined in a computer. She physically attacks the doll maker. She attempts to take over her own destiny by making her dilemma public. In so doing, she makes public Conrad and Alice’s research before they are published. Everyone involved becomes famous and the ALI II doll a best-seller, but . . .

Public disclosure results in threats of litigation, philosophic arguments, political divisiveness, and public outcry. No one has a solution, but it seems that Conrad has created Artificial Life.

Charles Darwin meet ALI II.

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