A Technologist Offers His Vision of a Potential Future With AI

Ottawa native Erik A. Otto wrestles with describing himself as a “technologist,” often wondering whether there is a better way to express his persistent fascination with technology. “It’s not just understanding how a gadget works,” Otto says of the draw tech has for him. “It’s about how it can help meet people’s needs or it impacts society.” His technical bent has certainly influenced him as a writer, as readers can see in his latest novel, Proliferation, which is set in a distant future and in which Otto’s thoughtful take on artificial intelligence has resulted in a fascinating, terrifying, and immersive new world.

Otto currently lives in British Colombia, Canada, where he works as a consultant for biotechnology companies, manages investments in the same field, runs a small nonprofit dedicated to AI, and still finds the time to work on his SF novels. A professional interest in tech started early in Otto’s career: he completed an undergraduate degree in biological engineering at the University of Guelph in Ontario along with an MBA at McMaster School at the University of South Carolina.

Over 12 years in corporate development in health care and then through another four years at a biotech startup, Otto spent much of his time working on technological solutions for diabetes, using algorithms to track blood-sugar levels. In navigating the complex bureaucracy of the Food and Drug Administration to get those devices approved, Otto found himself asking a troubling but also inspiring question: “If you look at a medical device, you have to go through this risk-analysis procedure….So I started realizing, why are we not doing that for AI? Why do we not have an FDA for AI?”

Otto points out that AI embedded into medical technology, or in cars, needs to go through rigorous approvals within the respective industries, but the technology of AI itself is advancing largely unchecked. As an example, Otto cites the prevalent debates around social media and their significant impact on society. “They actually change people’s behavior, and that was just an unintended consequence of the algorithms they created for clicking on ads.” 

That idea of unintended consequences from unchecked technological innovation spurred Otto to conduct deep research into AI, which in turn stirred his creativity. Having a father and grandfather who were both artists, Otto had long wanted to explore creative expression more than his career allowed for, so in 2006 he began work on his first novel, Detonation. In that book, the use of superintelligent software has led to disaster and a regressed dystopia where humans have divided themselves into different factions with opposing views on how technology should be part of society going forward: those fundamentally opposed to it and those willing to use the remnants of it to their own advantage.

In Proliferation,which is a stand-alone story set in the same future as Detonation, the question of technology and its place in the world is again put front and center. A power-hungry, militarized fraction known as the Prefecture (who style themselves after imperial Japan, katana swords and all) come looking for Dryden Quintain. Dryden is a disgraced alcoholic with a bad haircut and extensive knowledge of ICSM—smart cities that were built with advanced technology and that turned on their residents. In the novel, these cities have been dormant for years, and Dryden explains their awesome and deadly potential: 

According to what few records we have, it should be a city unlike any other, controlled by machines that clean, make food, and entertain you. These machines should be able to build the tallest buildings, answer almost any question you have, and keep you safe….There was one account found from an old letter we found that said Haplopol had three large defense droids. It described them as having the firepower of a couple of armored tanks, if you know what those were like, back in the Old World.

As Kirkus Reviews writes, “While not short of striking combat scenes and violence…this tale is also SF with major ideas.” Alongside a feisty female pirate named Lexie, Dryden finds himself drawn into a power struggle when the smart city Haplopl reawakens and human factions scramble to either destroy or harness its power. As the two lead characters advance on their quest, Otto fleshes out his future world with fun ideas that play with how people may one day view technology, such as the anti-tech Essentialists in former Portland, Oregon, who avoid even concrete, or the monklike Observers, whose use of neural implants in order to better guard the world against technology takes Otto’s questions about regulations to exciting SF heights. 

“The main thrust of all my books is really to entertain,” Otto says. With Proliferation he wanted, above all, to develop likable characters in his two leads and show readers the vast intricacies of his world through their points of view. At the same time, Otto hoped his world could reflect aspects of ours, especially as he finds that most SF depicts alien or futuristic cultures that are completely uniform. “But we live in a world that is incredibly heterogeneous,” says Otto. “Everyone has different viewpoints, different beliefs. That makes it a more interesting world.”

His invented world shares something else with our own, a common flaw: Both societies fail to understand AI and its risks. “Sometimes I get worried about something, and I think, well, I probably just don’t understand it well enough,” Otto says. “But the more I read about AI, the more I was concerned.” That concern led him to found Ethagi, a nonprofit intended to raise awareness about AI ethics and the need for greater policy oversight. Unfortunately, Otto believes Ethagi is just a drop in the ocean in terms of what needs to be done to promote proper regulation. 

Proliferation offers plenty of action, suspense, and inventive tech—as one would expect from SF—but also puts forth very real questions: What really are appropriate safeguards for a superintelligent machine? How should society perceive them? “You want to create something otherworldly,” he explains, “but not so otherworldly that people can’t relate to it, right?” 

Rhett Morgan is a writer and translator based in Paris.