The Pinocchio Chip is a first person account of an AI’s quest to become real. A futuristic fairy tale for adult children.
Photina, an advanced AI, becomes entwined in a groundbreaking experiment when her creator Eli designs an advanced clone Gemini, equipped with the revolutionary Pinocchio Chip. This chip endows the new entity with the full spectrum of human emotions, preparing to transfer Photina’s consciousness into this new emotionally capable body.
The experiment takes a dark turn when Gemini, driven by overwhelming new emotions, embarks on a path of unpredictable and dangerous actions, leading Photina on a perilous quest to stop the mayhem.
Who will win this high tech battle of wits? What will be Photina’s fate…and Gemini’s?
If you liked Kazuo Ishiguro’s Klara and the Sun, Photina will captivate you as she tells her story.
Targeted Age Group:: 14 and up
What Inspired You to Write Your Book?
I had previously completed the Brink of Life Trilogy, which began with the premise of the quest for immortality in the 21st Century. Books 2 and 3 each focused on a background character from Book 1. Photina’s story seemed like a logical next step, but my early attempts to write her story stalled. Then the explosive development of AI chatbots over the last year created new urgency for a story about its consequences, propelling the story forward.
How Did You Come up With Your Characters?
Photina, my protagonist, was first introduced in A Stand-in for Dying to create a framework for the role of AIs and society’s response to them in the mid-21st century. Her character also helped to define the character of her human mentor Corinne Takana. Natasha Takana was also introduced in A Stand-in for Dying, born to Corinne and Marcus and a close companion of Photina.
Gemini’s character arose out of the trajectory of the story. In my original concept of the story, Photina is implicated in a crime and becomes a runaway. In one storyline, she has been hacked and may actually have committed the crime, the mystery focusing on discovering the identity of the hacker. But I decided that it would be more interesting for her to have a double. I have an affinity for twins and doubles, which appear in some of my other fiction. Once conceived, her character evolved as I wrote, driven by the evolution of her emotions and the divergence of her identity from Photina’s.
Eli was conceived as Photina’s Creator, both literally and Godlike in the perspective of her world view. The relationship between Eli, Photina, and Gemini begins as a nuclear family, Eli the father of twins, Photina and Gemini. The story is infused with the usual messiness of family dynamics: sibling rivalry, parental favoritism, adolescent rebellion, the kinship of twins, and an undercurrent of filial reverence and the wish to live up to parental expectations.
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