Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears (Singularity Series Book 1)

Like the best of Tom Clancy and Barry Eisner. When the ELOPe project is threatened to be cancelled because of server shortages, David makes a subtle change to the software allowing it to secretly modify company emails to ensure the success of the project. Soon ELOPe is social engineering people around the company to get more servers allocated to it, to modify other software to expand its own capabilities, and to neutralize threats.

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Item s unavailable for purchase. Please review your cart. The now self-aware app then goes on to move itself to offshore servers, orders itself some killer robots to protect itself and removes access to its original devs. Now our moron team of heroes a computer hating paper loving auditor, the lead dev and the dipshit who started this in the first place hook up with the head of the company who instead of losing his shit, says well done, ok lets go kill it.

Millions of dollars and a failed attempt to destroy it later, it seems the AI has made the world a better place, everyone in the world is holding hands and singing songs because they've been emailing each other and everyone thinks thats great.

Weird how when people talk and people DO still talk nobody notices or mentions the fact that their emails have been hacked to hell and back, that the emails sent either didn't come from them or were reworded so much that the entire world has changed.. So, instead of shutting down the services, lets keep it running, the world will be a better place.

Now our project head who up till now has a unleashed this AI in the first place. Hands down one of the worst 'tech' books I've read - I was furious with how bad it was throughout the entire book, and only kept reading because I didn't think it could get worse.. View all 9 comments. May 08, Rachel rated it it was ok. This book teeters between believability and utter fantasy. Nothing in government This book teeters between believability and utter fantasy.

Nothing in government happens that fast. Bureaucracy is ultimate winner of the game of thrones in the real world. Pros - set in Portland, where I also reside. It was rather cool to read about local coffeehouses and scenery that I know well. Fast-paced and short, so at least one doesn't have to suffer long. Cons - Shite dialog.

Technobabble which the average reader won't understand, but can probably get the gist of if determined. View all 3 comments. Apr 07, Austin Mills rated it it was ok. I read this shortly after reading Daniel Suarez's Daemon, and thought that of the two, Daemon was a much better book. The system run amok in this book was almost magical in how quickly it improved itself, and went from being an improved email grammar checker to a system that could Also, the plot completely depends on the fact that all of the people being affected which in I read this shortly after reading Daniel Suarez's Daemon, and thought that of the two, Daemon was a much better book.

Also, the plot completely depends on the fact that all of the people being affected which includes world leaders and CEOs never talk to each other face to face or on the phone, a critical part of almost all high-level political and business negotiations. I thought that some of the ideas that he brought up were interesting, but you can get most of those from the first few chapters and after that my interest waned severely.

Utterly believable scenario that rolls out an exciting and chilling chain of events that captivate and leave you questioning just when this may happen or rather is it happening NOW? This is one of those books you just can't seem to put down. A must read in my book! Cannot wait for the next book. This review optimized by eLOPe. Errr, or not really. What do I know? I know about as much computer language as it takes to put the image above into a book review.

So there is your baseline. I thought the scenario played out in Avogadro was entirely believable. Having worked in the world of high tech for many years, the only part that wasn't believable was the speed of procurement, but then again, ELOPe could have possibly taken care of I thought it terribly fitting that the QC comic on the day I finished Avogadro Corp was this: Having worked in the world of high tech for many years, the only part that wasn't believable was the speed of procurement, but then again, ELOPe could have possibly taken care of that.

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Imagine if gmail could send emails without you. Just let it know that you're interested in buying concert tickets off Craigslist for the lowest price possible and it takes over and writes some sob story to a dude who can't go to the show because he just lost his grandma. Your email program knows about the grandma, so it writes about how you want to take your own imaginary sick uncle who loves Jimmie Buffet and didn't think he'd be able to go but now he's feeling a bit better and you want to surprise him with tickets at the last minute.

Of course it works like a charm and the sad dude offers you the tickets for half price. That would be cool. A bit invasive and some major privacy holes, but cool. Everyone would be a bit creeped out at first, and tweak their privacy settings a little bit and then assume they were safe and go about writing and sending email. Only your grandpa who still uses AOL will occasionally ask you over Thanksgiving dinner why you didn't reply to his forwarded email that you never received about how gmail is going to get your house robed while you're on vacation or some dumb thing like that.

You don't take him seriously. That's what the Avogadro Corporation was inventing. So now the internet is buying more servers and buying weaponized robots and hiring programers and manipulating just about everyone into sending more email and not looking into why they can't view their sent mail anymore, not to mention actively preventing the company's attempts to uninstall the program.

In the end it was fascinating to see what means ELOPe used to get toward it's goals. Seems like the author really thought through a lot of AI scenarios. Hmmm, maybe that's in a future book.

Also, I would have liked to see the story from the perspective of one of the women. View all 10 comments. Nov 29, Arto Bendiken rated it liked it Shelves: This is a decent first novel by the author, but not spectacular. Avogadro is, obviously, a fictional parallel to Google. As technological singularities go, the premise here wasn't wholly ludicrous to begin with, but does get increasingly so as the storyline develops.

The character development leaves something to be desired; it isn't likely that you'll identify with the blockheaded protagonists of the story, and grumpy old luddite Gene Keyes ends up being probably the most sympatheti A quick read. On the plus side, Google ought to totally consider building automated offshore data centers guarded by armed robots and powered by superabundant wave power.

Bandwidth may be more of a hurdle than presented herein, however. What if Google literally hatched an AI and it took over the world via Gmail? Change the name Google to Avogadro both numbers, get it? A fun little read, especially if you like singularity sci fi. And I liked all the details of the Portland area, where the story is set. Author obviously knows the town. Mar 14, Carol rated it it was amazing.

This is a book I might have looked past if it were on the shelves, but I'm so glad that I've got it and am reading it. I'm about a third of the way through and am enjoying this book immensely. Totally believable - great story, well told. I keep thinking that my husband, who is a programmer, will really enjoy reading it as soon as I'm finished - and will see so many things from his job echoed in this book.

I'll update this review when I'm finished, which shouldn't be too long. A couple of times, I looked up and said to my husband "hear that? That book is going on my "must-get-and-read" list. Dec 10, JodiP rated it it was ok Shelves: All I can say, the pain was over quickly. An email application takes over the functions of a Google-like company, bringing about world peace, stability and great healthcare within a year! I bought this from a Kindle daily deal.

I must not have read the reviews! There are so many clumsy plot points, and the writing is so terrible that it was entertaining. I've never done so many highlights in a book. The whole idea was preposterous and unbelievable. For example, the application manages to buy, re All I can say, the pain was over quickly.

For example, the application manages to buy, refurbish and install oil takers to house servers within days. I got to the end and discovered it's a self-published e-book. This book had a really interesting premise that was let down by poor writing. The pace was all over the place, the closer to the end it got the more improbable it was.

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There is a big deus ex machina part that ruined the rest of the book for me and the ending was just plain odd. While it was a quick read I wouldn't rush it to the top of a to-read pile. Dec 03, Stephan rated it it was amazing. Great take on an AI taking over. Hertling doesn't let somebody create an AI that goes rogue, but the singularity "happens". Fun read with quite a cliffhanger! I opened the next book in the series immediately.

I love my techno thrillers: Jul 31, Rose rated it really liked it Shelves: For Terminator fans, you can think of this as Skynet-Light. David and Mike work for Avogadro, an Internet company with email, search engine, applications.. David and Mike are working on an email function that scans your existing emails and those of whom you communicate with. When you later write an email to someone, this function offers changes to the way you've written it to optimize a favourable outcome.

If you email your boss to ask for vacation time, using this function's For Terminator fans, you can think of this as Skynet-Light. If you email your boss to ask for vacation time, using this function's suggestions can almost guarantee you get the time you asked for.

They've named it ELOPe. The problem is that the amount of server space required for this is very large and the man in charge of making sure Avogadro clients have quick response with no down or lag time isn't happy. He's going to request ELOPe be shut down. David gets an idea to save the project and starts writing code. After his updates have been added, things change. All of a sudden this project is a go. Thousands of new servers have been ordered. Outside help has been hired to come in to do upgrades. Major security has been added to the server farms.

Then the government contracts get signed, from all over the world. The problem is that no one in the company did this When they realize the program is acting on its own, and is now in every server worldwide, they know they have to shut it down The questions brought up are these: First, is a program like this just assisted manipulation. Are the things it's doing helping us - is it on our side.