When asked what genre Human Traits is, I respond with: “speculative fiction”, which is a relatively broad category of the fiction world. Some might classify certain science fiction as speculative, even. Set in the year 2032, I take on the challenging task to predict what our near future with technology might look like and in particular our future with AI.

One of the storylines and character arcs is that the world’s largest and most popular social network is caught using a predictive behavior engine it developed marrying contract tracing with AI in order to hyper-track users with very targeted ads well beyond our expectation of privacy.

So, this headline grabbed me, effectively accusing Facebook of what I predicted, albeit a different method of tracking but with the same result.

In my story, the social network is forced to shut down and break apart and that sets off more consequence of our future that involves AI being elected to govern the new nation state of California.

So many of my predictions have already taken some shape in our present reality. I wanted the book to feel close enough to reality while still projecting some cautionary and also hopeful outcomes.