Agency (novel)

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Gibson, William. Agency. New York: Berkley Books (Penguin Group), 2020.

From the ("stub") Wikipedia entry, Agency is a:

 'sequel and a prequel'[3] to his [Gibson's] previous novel The Peripheral (2014), reusing the technology from the novel to explore an alternative 2017 where Hillary Clinton won the 2016 Presidential Election. The story line further explores the concept of the "Jackpot", a back-story element of The Peripheral.

One plot is set in the alternative 2017, with a young woman named Verity testing a new form of avatar software developed by the military, for a start-up in San Francisco. A second plot line involves people in a post-apocalyptic 22nd century meddling with 2017.[1]

That "new form of avatar software" is highly relevant here: gendered female, ethnized African-American, derived from a human with military/intelligence talents and skills, and named UNISS ("Eunice"), for "Untethered Noetic Irregular Support System" (p. 68 according to a useful on-line review).[2] The degree to which UNISS/Eunice is "real" — the Pinocchio Question — is developed in detail and in terms of personality, consciousness, feelings, and agency. To what extent is she a "she" and not an "it"? How "untethered" — free — is she, or any human? Cf. and contrast such notable AI entities as HAL 9000 in 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY as film and novel, or Mr. Data in ST:NG generally, and explicitly in such episodes as Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Data's Day"; note the issue in ethics of such AI as product or person in such works as I. Asimov's The Bicentennial Man or the ST:NG episode Star Trek: The Next Generation, "The Measure of a Man".

RDE, Initial Compiler, 22Mar20 f.