Customer Reviews

The Two Faces of Tomorrow

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is book ignited my interest in AI. I recently bought a used copy, signed by Hogan. Looking at it again, Hogan is a much weaker writer than I had remembered, but his vision was dead on. Clarke's HAL is completely unrealistic in comparision to Hogan's Hector and Sparticus.

Jim Hogan is one of the most underrated SF writers that I know of, although I suspect that many people have read and enjoyed his books. His vision of tomorrow's technology and where it might take us is second to none, making some famous authors like Arthur Clarke and Isaac Asimov seem foolishly optimistic in some of their predictions. One reason for this is that Hogan is a qualified engineer with very wide knowledge of the computer industry, which he extrapolates very convincingly. (I think more SF writers fail in their expectations of future computing than in almost any other department - Heinlein, for instance, has recognizably 1950-1970 computers in many of his stories set centuries in the future). Some of Hogan's other books contain similar ideas - notably "Code of the Lifemaker" - and several of his later novels deal with virtual reality.

The core idea of "Two Faces of Tomorrow" is one of the fundamental dilemmas facing humanity today and in the coming years. Namely, if a computer system is not more intelligent than we are, it cannot (in principle) achieve anything we can't. But, if it is more intelligent than we are, how can we trust its recommendations? Let alone its actions if we equip it to control machinery directly? In this book, a team of scientists, with military backup, are charged with running a full-scale experiment to find out whether an executive AI could resist all efforts to shut it down, and if so how. The outcome is very surprising, in both positive and negative ways.

As other reviewers have noted, Hogan does not put much effort into characterization, preferring to linger over engineering details. That's a stylistic choice, however, and a writer cannot do everything in the scope of a normal-length novel. This book should definitely be on your reading list if you're an SF devotee, and I think that all politicians and decision-makers should be aware of its core ideas. One day we are going to have to do something similar, although it may not be quite as dramatic as Hogan's story.

As a computer programmer, I found the premise and the theory fascinating. Once again, another Hogan book that I couldn't put down until I was finished.

The technology projection and some of the AI concepts explored are very well done, especially given when it was written. The book itself suffers from some flat & predictable elements (a la a standard SF-action movie), a slow windup, and what seems an implausible set up for the second half (i.e., not a very good experiment). Finally, the characters never seemed to reach full 3D development.

Overall, an entertaining read, some very interesting ideas, and a story wrapper that I wish could've been set up better. If you're reading for just the ideas and are not familiar with the AI concepts in the book, this is well worth it. If you're familiar with the concepts, then this can be an enjoyable read anyway.

Hogan spent time discussing the premise of this book with such AI geniuses as Marvin Minsky, and it shows. A very plausible scenario and exciting execution. Also available as a well-adapted comic book from Dark Horse Comics.

While the story remains the same, there have been some changes due to the graphic novel adaptation process.

Read this story in '82 and was very impressed. Should stand well today and deals with a most important question which we'll have to face eventually. Has exciting ending and would make excellent film.

I honestly think this should be made into a movie. This book came out before the internet but would be an incredible story in this day of the web. No doubt a deal is already in place, but come on holiwood, let's see an original story make it's way to the big screen... Oh yeah, and for you reading this? Get it and read it. A great story.

The ideas and vision discussed in this book were way ahead of its time. In fact, it came out a full 11 years before Raymond Kurzweil's The Age of Intelligent Machines. Kurzweil's subsequent work gained him a dozen science and technology related awards, but what did Hogan get? This man is way too underrated.
In this book the author talks about evolution of intelligence at an exponential rate, drastically different computational models yeilding the same outward results, risks associated with autonomous AI, and has the exceptional mental horizon to conceive the scientific arguments of several different skeptics of the central idea discussed. Sure, there are some technical and logical wrongs in this book. But the overall idea is surprisingly accurate and robust even 30 years after its publication. I for one see very similar patterns to those predicted in this science fiction book, in the AIs of recent strategy games such as CnC Red Alert 3.
You should read this book for its fast paced action. Or for the mental stimulation that it provides.

I first heard of The Two Faces of Tomorrow via Yukinobu Hoshino's (the author/artist of the excellent 2001 Nights) graphic novel adaptation. I picked that up, but thought I should read the original novel first. Especially since I have a number of James Hogan's books in my TBR pile.

James Hogan manages to take the hoary old sci-fi cliche of the evil mastermind computer and put, well, not a new spin but at least some believable science behind it. The book is set some time in the mid-2040's. The internet and some very smart server computers has managed to bring about world peace and end hunger. However a computer makes connections the programmers never predicted causing a near-fatal incident by being logical, but not reasonable while solving a demolition assignment. Computer scientist/psychologist Raymond Dyer wants to upgrade the system by programming in 'common sense'. He wants to give TITAN (the otherwise stable system responsible for so much of humanities peace and prosperity) a true artificial intelligence. A conscience.

Since everybody in this world has seen the Terminator films, they want to thoroughly test the system far from Earth before upgrading. In order to see the worst that might happen, they install a version of the A.I. that has been modified with an aggressive survival instinct into a newly completed space station. They then provoke the A.I. (dubbed Spartacus) to see what its' reaction will be. As you might imagine, things quickly get out of hand.

I have to give him credit. Mr. Hogan really knows his stuff. This book was written in the late-70's, yet he predicted the internet and cell phones (though they have different names). He also avoided the pitfalls of so many hard sci-fi writers that had us flying hovercars by the 1990's or moving the Cold War into space. Thirty years later, this book doesn't feel dated. If I didn't check the copyright, I would believe this was a newly written novel.

The problem is that even though the setup is terrific and the authors foresight impressive, the first two-hundred-something pages are an endless series of philosophical dialogues on the dangers of technology versus the benefits and lectures relating to A.I. occuring on and on between the different characters. It really started to drag on the book. For quite a while there was just no forward momentum. I was reminded of Notes from Underground, where a pretty good novel waits at the end of an endless stream of philosophical noodling. While it was interesting (especially the experiments with the FISE computer) overall it felt like Hogan was laying out his hard sci-fi cred before treating us to a fun story of an evil computer blowing stuff up. Maybe it would have worked better if he could have interlaced these lectures within the body of the story a little more, perhaps as flashbacks or something.

Also, his characters are pretty flat. Here I am, a day after reading it and the only characters I can really remember by name are Dyer and his girlfriend Laura. The various military and government personal I couldn't quite remember as I was reading chapter by chapter. I don't expect dynamic, larger-than-life characters in hard sci-fi (given the protagonists required for these stories it would probably strain my suspension of disbelief too much) but man, Hogans characters make Stephen Baxter's characters seem absolutely scintillating.

His characters also seem to place too much faith in science and reason. While that is laudable, it just didn't feel very realistic. Dyer is able to win over the Pentagon and the White House through carefully reasoned arguments. This book was obviously written before our 43rd president was elected. Hogan must think better of our government than I do, but I think the experiment he wanted to run would have hit a couple of hundred more roadblocks in the real world than it did in this book.

Still, once the action started the book really did pick up. It's funny, because Hogan doesn't write especially good action scenes, but it helped to give the book the forward momentum that it was missing in the first half. The ending is also satisfying. Unexpected, yet wholly logical and optimistic (though a little unbelievable as again it counts on a long time military man accepting some scientific theories over hard-bitten common sense). Overall I'm glad I read the book and will try more from Hogan. As a hard SF writer, he is impressive. I just hope his sense of pacing is better.