Dream of Glass

Gawron, Jean Mark. Dream of Glass. New York: Harcourt, 1993. ISBN 0-15-126569-0.

An important information society, fairly near-future dystopia, which includes first contact with an (unaliened) very high-tech alien craft. Back cover identifies JMG as "a Ph.D. in computational linguistics," working in AI at SRI International in San Francisco, and the book itself seems highly sophisticated about AI (and philosophy and literature). Front cover says DoG presents a "world where information is God and artificial intelligences have joined ranks with misfit hackers to undermine a fascist state"—metaphorically true on godlike information—the Highest Good for the state—more literally true than usual in use of the word "fascist" (quotes Mussolini). "Dream of Glass is an adventure in cyberspace . . . that pursues the timeless question of what an individual is." Imagery includes cyberspace, the superimposition of the cybernetic and electronic upon the human, and AI conjugation (explicitly compared to the simplest sort of sex: bacterial exchange of DNA). See also for a small robot "homunculus" controlled by an AI and then (temporarily) embodying an AI, a human personality copied by an AI—and certainly an AI/human interface if not AI control. (RDE, 12/05/94; 13/08/96)