Annie Bot

"This is a clever take on the conscious-AI theme. Annie Bot was designed to be a ‘cuddle bunny’, a sexual partner for her owner, Doug. He’s chosen to make her autodidactic, which allows her to be a more convincing partner for him, but also to develop her consciousness in ways not fully understood. In Greer’s world, the consciousness of Annie is not in doubt – indeed, she has specialists interested in her particular development – but she doesn’t have any rights. And her emotions are set to want to please Doug. She finds herself also wanting specific forbidden things, or trying to cover up accidental mistakes, but her programming makes the idea of actively wanting to leave Doug off limits. To an extent, because of how she’s been set up, pleasing him and looking after her own welfare are fused together. And the reports we receive of him are through her eyes. Yes, but in a way that doesn’t make her feel hugely limited or inhuman. Greer has created a fully rounded protagonist who just has certain priors, and those priors aren’t different to real humans who would never consider leaving their bad relationships. The book feels like an exploration of that situation, and of the roles women may automatically assign themselves in relationships, more than of robot consciousness. It’s compounded by the fact that a lot of the time Doug is not behaving awfully, if you can stomach the fact that they have an owner-pet dynamic – there are worse human relationships! As The Guardian put it – “this is an intense, compelling tale that, like all good stories about robots, is ultimately about the human condition.”"

"Annie is a companion, a manufactured housewife who is programmed to keep her husband happy. The husband’s best friend is a jerk and mistreats Annie, whilst the husband gets more and more unpleasant. If she were a real woman, you’d be thinking this is coercive control, but if it’s just a machine… well, it gets messy. The judges spent a lot of time talking about the ethics of the novel and what they made of the husband. I think that’s the mark of a great book – it leaves you with questions. I think if it was about real AI then Annie would be a lot more deluded than she is! She’d be hallucinating rather than misjudging things. It’s very traditional in some ways – there are hints of The Stepford Wives , the film anyway, but Annie is more isolated. She’s like a 1950s housewife in some ways – which most women weren’t like even at the time."