Subject: THE TURING OPTION by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky

From: [email-masked] (Vincent Archer)
Date: 16 Jan 94 00:00:05 GMT

THE TURING OPTION
                   by Harry Harrison and Marvin Minsky
                     A book review by Vincent Archer
                      Copyright 1994 Vincent Archer

[Std disclaimer: English is not my native language, so you'll probably find
 a lot of bad wording, expressions and similar mistakes. That fact never
 stopped me from enjoying SF works in the original version - I read more
 english SF than french SF]

Given the two names on the cover of this book, one would expect a very
smart book, beautifully written, with a lot of interesting and up-to-date
scientific contents.

The plot revolves around one Brian Delaney, computer genius, who works
for Megalobe Industries in this year 2023. Working on "true" A.I.,
Brian Delaney gets nearly killed in a break-in. Industrial spies
get hold of everything and everyone in the labs - save our hero,
which conveniently manages to gets himself locked in a safe vault just
after being shot thru the head.

The plot summary at the back of the book focus on what happens to Brian
Delaney, after a world's best neuro-surgeon - who, also, conveniently
worked some time ago with Delaney - manages to graft a super-computer
inside the scientist's skull to reconnect the severed parts of the brain.

In fact, the book has three major topics: We've got a computer-inside-brain
subject, an AI subject, and a criminal/industrial spying mystery. The
fascinating aspect of a computer seamlessly integrated inside someone's
head do not dominate the book at all! As the reference to Turing indicates,
we'll have to face a strong AI contents too.

                        *** SPOILER WARNING ***
              [Spoilers about the book follow after this.]

I felt cheated because, apart from the somewhat long regression therapy,
during which we're subjected to Delaney's childhood, and a few
'unexpected' things during his recovery, the brain + computer part
was completely forgotten. Delaney uses its computer implants half a dozen
times, download a few "memories", and we get a glimpse of the brain's
new capabilities for what amount to a grand total of two or three pages
on more than half the book.

These capabilities are nothing miraculous. Any book dealing with this
topic never failed to present us with instant knowledge on any subject
gained by downloading books/libraries/encyclopaedia in the computer,
flashing insights provided by the CPU, device control or direct
mind-to-computer discussions. Here, nothing new is shown, and the way
these aspects are treated left me wanting for more.

Then, there's the AI. From simple expert systems at the beginning, our
fearless scientist recreates its lost research, then proceed to download
a part of its own brain pattern in its creation, and presto... you've
got Sven, the wonder robot. The M.I. (Machine Intelligence, because
Artificial is demeaning - god, we've got PC talk!) promptly solves
part of the criminal investigation, uses its inbuilt detector to spy
upon cellular telephone calls, and perform a lot of other wonders. There's
no problem in Sven passing the Turing Test, basically because I never got
the impression that Sven was anything else but a human walking in a funny
body.

The mystery was also completely botched. Nobody finds anything, until
the AI provides us with the name of the company that sells smart robots
using the stolen technology. Then, that same AI finds a telephone number
conveniently hidden inside these robots' ROM, which leads our hero to
the computer expert that was "innocent; recruited by the bad guys; then
blackmailed to do the job". Upon its timely - and moral - death, that
scientist also happen to know the location of the arch-villain and
leaves a message to Delaney, which confronts him in his Switzerland
haven. The villain then dies too, leaving the identity of the government
he worked for unknown.

That last chapter was really too much. We've got gaping inconsistencies
like the fact that Delaney's boos blood was found on the lab walls after
the theft, then it was found later that he was the arch-villain. And
nobody even wondered why... And yes, we've also got our big, baaad, evil
general that want to keep everything under its own control for the
"national security". Tell me about originality.

After finishing the book I can tell you that this purchase was a mistake
from my part. For an airplane reading, I would still use it; it's light
reading, you won't be too challenged in your world view, and after you
arrive at your destination, you can discard it without a second tought.
The fact that it's being published by Warner Books, after having been
featured by the Science Fiction Book Club should have been warning
enough: I almost always find Questar books in airport bookstores.

It's obvious that the synergy between Harrison and Minsky was not very
good, and I feel that they should refrain from doing more books together.
Then, the book attempted to deal with too many things at once. Either of
the three aspects of the book - thriller, AI, mind enhancement - is more
than enough to fill a book by itself. To cram all three in one takes a lot
of talent. To squeeze all that, plus filler, is obsviously too much even
for a 400-page book.

Putting together a very good SF writer (which Harrison is) and a very
good scientist (which Minsky is) was a good idea. Too bad it didn't
work out. The end result still had its fascinating glimpses of a not so
far future and tries to teach us one or two things about scientific
theories, but lacks in-depth coverage of the themes. It might be good
reading for the general public, but not so much for a hundred-books-a-year
SF reader.

%T  THE TURING OPTION
%A  Harry Harrison
%A  Marvin Minsky
%I  Warner Books
%C  Nwe York
%D  October 1993
%G  ISBN 0-446-36496-7
%P  409 pp.
%O  paperback, US$5.99
-- 
	Vincent Archer			Email:	[email-masked]

Don't worry if it doesn't work right. If everything did, you'd be out of a job.