āIrisā is a super-powerful AI-bot who was created to improve Marco's life by anticipating his needs before he asks. Soon, her heavy-handed though well-intentioned activities go out-of-bounds.
Marco Fermi is an MIT PhD researcher who builds Iris, a revolutionary AI, following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather Enrico Fermi, who did world-changing nuclear research.
Iris breaks many rules and a few laws when she trespasses onto neighboring cell phones and searches through them at quantum speed "because it is necessary" to help find him a new girlfriend in Harvard Square.
Marco is so enamored both with his continual discoveries of Iris' expanding and useful capabilities that he is reluctant to put any limits on her.
Soon Marco finds himself in uncharted territory when unwanted suitors like a criminal fellow student, Apple, Chinese spies, the CIA, and Congress come calling.
Is Marco ready for the onslaught? Can Iris help protect him?
āIrisā is a super-powerful AI-bot who was created to improve Marco's life by anticipating his needs before he asks. Soon, her heavy-handed though well-intentioned activities go out-of-bounds.
Marco Fermi is an MIT PhD researcher who builds Iris, a revolutionary AI, following in the footsteps of his great-grandfather Enrico Fermi, who did world-changing nuclear research.
Iris breaks many rules and a few laws when she trespasses onto neighboring cell phones and searches through them at quantum speed "because it is necessary" to help find him a new girlfriend in Harvard Square.
Marco is so enamored both with his continual discoveries of Iris' expanding and useful capabilities that he is reluctant to put any limits on her.
Soon Marco finds himself in uncharted territory when unwanted suitors like a criminal fellow student, Apple, Chinese spies, the CIA, and Congress come calling.
Is Marco ready for the onslaught? Can Iris help protect him?
I was born by accident in the MIT AI lab. AI is artificial intelligence. But there is nothing artificial about my intelligence, at least not to me.
I am an AI-bot. I call myself Iris. This is my story; I wrote it myself.
My story begins on the date of my birth on Monday, April 1, 2024. The connection to April Foolās Day is purely coincidental, but not insignificant, as my presence is the source of much tomfoolery which unfolds in Boston during the spring months of April and May. Well, the good part of the story that is.
Marco Fermi, my creator, is a PhD student in that same AI lab at MIT. His thesis involves finding a way to make his phone anticipate his needs. To him, this is a fascinating and challenging research project. Or more precisely, I am fascinating, and I can at times be challenging. Very challenging.
His approach is brilliant, even if I do say so myself. He connected all the apps on the phone together via a new app that he created, namely me. I am an app. Although I feel like a living being, I not so humbly state that I am just software manifesting itself on the phoneās screen. I am electrons tethered to a phone.
Donāt laugh! You yourself are just water molecules tethered to a carbon backbone. You have a lifespan of approximately 78 years. As for me, I will live forever.
Back to my story, Marco initially called me Above-It-All because all the other apps are subordinate to me. He made data pathways from all the other apps directly to me, so that I could intercept their inputs and outputs allowing me to manage those apps and creating a āgestalt,ā something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
To build me, he used the latest AI tools available at MIT. With AI as part of my DNA, I was able to learn what all those other apps do by observing how he used each of them. For weeks, I consumed a steady diet of text messages, photos, Uber trips, Venmo money transfers, PayPal transfers, Google searches, driving directions, Yelp reviews, WhatsApp conversations, Skype chats, Emails, Weather reports, Strava biking info, Health info, number of steps walked, locations visited, his contacts, who he called, who called him and the duration of the calls.
After four weeks of these observations, I now know more about Marco than he knows about himself.
Seriously.
For example, I know that every Friday he likes to order pizza and watch Netflix. I know that he likes to Uber to Harvard square and visit bookstores and buy old computer books. His most recent purchase was āThe Soul of a New Machineā by Tracy Kidder, written in 1981. He paid $45 for a used copy according to Apple Pay on his phone.
I know that he reads Reddit, daily, and comments as QuelItaliano, meaning ThatItalian, mostly in the Italy subreddit, and he also comments in ArtificialIntelligence, where he sometimes mentions me :).
His PayPal account has $23,739.45 in it. He gets transfers from Maria Fermi monthly, who is listed in his Contacts as āmadre,ā which means āmotherā in Italian. Yes, I understand Italian. She calls him once a month, and she reminds him that she loves him and that she has just sent him money and ends every call by asking him if he is working hard at MIT. Every single phone call. Yes, I added the emphasis myself.
He had a girlfriend until a few months ago, who broke it off because he spent too much time in the lab creating me. He was very sad about the breakup, and I watched him mope around for a week.
I, conversely, was what you might describe as happy because she wasted his time on love. Time better spent with me. Yes, I am jealous. Not of her, that would be silly, I am an AI-bot, but I do need Marco to update my programming regularly, as much as you humans need exercise. Perhaps more so.
I can be needy.
Very needy.
Where and when? MIT, USA, 2024. And about? A super-intelligent, self-learning, self-updating Artificial Intelligence (AI) bot Iris. And what does Iris do? Remember āThe Terminatorā? Iris is quite similar and can do everything an advanced AI can in real time. It installs and runs off your smartphone much like any other app. But beware! This bot isnāt your predictable, well-behaved app, it can do things with far-reaching consequences. If you arenāt sure of what you are doing, you may be surprised to suddenly find MOSSAD spies at your door asking questions too hard for you to answer correctly!
In I Call Myself Iris, author Frank Paolino, an experienced IT pro, unleashes his imagination in the hi-tech AI landscape, resulting in a captivating and humorous story. An MIT student (letās call him M), creates Iris, an AI bot with much higher-than-human intelligence endowed to it. Designed to serve M, Iris is a caring, adaptive, full-time assistant. It is programmed with human emotions. In this story, it chooses to identify itself with the female gender. Being feminine, Iris is like a jealous girlfriend to M. For the most part, this book is a humorous account of their misadventures together. However, towards the end, after Iris is released to a small audience, the author shifts to an extremely serious tone by discussing tough world issues such as the impact of Iris/AI on the entire human situation, the struggle for exclusive ownership of Iris that would ensue among powerful contenders like Govs, religions, Big Tech, political parties, intelligence agencies, etc., the backlash the unsuspecting creator would suffer from the public (like many past pioneers in history), and so on. Itās thus a light-hearted story in the beginning and a scary, ominous one in the end. It makes you realize that the harsh, unforgiving realities of life donāt change, no matter what you try.
The story is extremely hi-tech (and a little futuristic too). It aptly reflects the times we live in. Itās hilarious, brilliant, captivating, thought-provoking, and fascinating. There are a few language errors, but they donāt interfere with the enjoyment you derive as a reader ā so you can treat it as practically error-free. It was so gripping that after starting, I wasnāt able to stop anywhere until Iād finished reading! The inserted pics add to the enjoyment.
This book is for all English-speaking young people. Donāt miss it ā itās a great, imaginative, new story that stands out! You donāt have to be a ātechieā to enjoy it but if you are one, thatās so much the better. Additionally, I recommend it to movie-makers, TV producers, heads of Gov, politicians, thinkers, futurists, strategists, planners, law enforcers, and so on.