Scott Hutchins
As a character in the book asks, “What is love?” He proceeds to provide at least three alternatives to his own question – a biochemical emergent property of evolution? A social construct? Or just acquisition and deal making involving assets two people have?
In ‘A Working Theory of Love’, Scott Hutchins takes a stab at it through its characters in ways real and artificial. At the centre of it all is Neill Bassett, a resident of San Francisco in his mid-thirties, working at Amiante Systems with two others to build an artificial intelligence that will pass the Turing test. He is not a programmer/technologist – his essential connection with the project is that the machine’s “character” has been built using his father’s personality as manifested through the journals he (the father) had kept. He serves as the interlocutor for the machine as its creators try to make it a sentient, ‘lifelike’ phenomenon.
In parallel, we also see his complex love life fold and unfold – there’s his ex-wife Erin with whom he still flirts on and off, Rachel – a vulnerable and mildly confused woman much younger than him, and later, Jenn – a brisk, smart programmer who works with a company that’s frenemies with Amiante. Neill is probably searching for some solace, a sense of actually feeling and belonging, an anchor with whom he ‘clicks’, but he is pragmatic, even cynical about finding it.
The mildly satirical take on life in the Bay Area dovetails seamlessly with Neill’s search for the truth behind his father’s suicide and his own relationships with the women in his life, including his mother. The common ground in all of this is the concept of connection – between humans as well as frnd1 and drbas (Neill’s and the machine’s chat identities respectively). If a human cannot feel a connection with another human, is that relationship really so different from how he relates to the different machines he works with? On the flip side, if he does connect with a machine, isn’t that as good as a conscious being in his reality?
I think the best thing about this book is how it treats really complex subjects with humour, charm and vulnerability. Great read.
