Neuraides is a serial collection of tales about the world's first psychologist who devotes himself to the problems and challenges faced by artificial intelligences. Blending psychology with computer science, Doug Taggart helps neuraides overcome dilemmas caused by human mismanagement, faulty programming, or bad luck.
The book includes multiple cases, each as an independent short story. But characters, plot threads, and themes run through the entire book.
The titular neuraides are artificial intelligences designed for particular tasks. Each neuraide has a limited scope and programming to support it. So a domestic servant will not have programming to support advanced engineering, while a military neuraide cannot generate artwork.
The neuraides can exist either in cyberspace or inhabit android bodies in the physical world. Most can also spawn temporary duplicates called incarnas - essentially forking a subprocess - for particular tasks. For instance, a game neuraide might spawn incarnas so multiple players can use the same character.
Each neuraide has a core set of dictates that it must follow, similar to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. However, these dictates might be worded or coded in an unusual way, resulting in unpredictable behavior. They may have been encoded with the wrong priorities, or even reflect the original developer's beliefs or morality.
>Neuraides may also malfunction if they receive conflicting orders. For instance, one story involves a neuraide domestic servant in the middle of a domestic dispute. A neuraide must follow commands from particular humans (its owners, for instance), so joint ownership could cause problems.
This is a sticky topic, and one the future society of Neuraides wrestles with. While it's easy to assert human rights to an android, such as Data from Star Trek, giving free will to a non-humanoid neuraide becomes problematic. Would you give human rights to the artificial intelligence driving your car?
Similarly, since humans purchase a neurade for a particular task, such as domestic service, they expect their purchase to follow orders. After all, how much utility would you find in a toaster that refuses to toast bread?
Again, this is an issue that the book touches on. In the future society, neuraides are prohibited from creating other neuraides. Therefore, they cannot build armies to overthrow humanity. And the more intelligent neuraides (as seen in one story) have reasoned that without humanity, they would cease to have meaning.
I did leave a few hints that AIs did cause problems in the century between now and the time of the book. Rather than having AIs that will try to solve any problem posed to it, neuraides are restricted in what skills and information they can process. A domestic servant has no need to know military technology, for instance.
Neuraides fill many roles throughout society. They function as domestic servants and assistants, police officers, doctors, chauffers (e.g., automated vehicles), game characters, military, and more. Some are even celebrities and entertainers. Most countries are governed by senates of neuraides.
The government of Atlantica (the Atlantic Coast states of the modern US) has a group of senators designed for government service, each from a different manufacturer. Periodically, the human inhabitants vote on senate membership, and also vote on priorities the senate should pursue. The senators then use the results as input to direct their policies.
The other nations follow similar designs. In addition, the governing neuraides of all nations will coordinate when necessary, such as allocating military forces to combat piracy or adjudicating international trade.
I have no plans for more stories at this time. But I won't rule it out, either. I might write a standalone story or two, but I doubt I'll write an entire second story collection.