The Gentle Romance

<p><strong style=color: rgba(79 79 79 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>'Full of depth and insight. Richard's stories push me to think bigger. They are engaging and grounded in real ideas about the future.' </strong><strong style=color: rgba(15 17 17 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>-</strong><strong style=color: rgba(79 79 79 1); background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)> John Schulman Creator of ChatGPT</strong></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1)>A collection of twenty-two riveting science fiction stories from leading AI researcher Richard Ngo.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>Lentando</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)> a 'zero-knowledge' consultant pieces together a secret from her deleted selves that could threaten the world order. In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>The Gentle Romance</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)> a lonely man discovers a profound connection through his neural interface. In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>The Witness</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)> a man wakes up in the future-again and again and again.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>In these richly drawn worlds lovers may merge minds personalities can fragment across millions of copies and AI powers dictate new political systems.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>Ngo's stories span the range from playful to terrifying to awe-inspiring. One by one they invite us to consider how we might be transformed-willingly or otherwise-beyond recognition.</span></p><p></p><p><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>'Interacting with real AI systems has rendered countless AI sci-fi tropes obsolete. To tell new stories about them we need someone like Richard Ngo: a gifted writer with direct experience of frontier models' internals. Ngo's palette spans AI as existential horror to unadulterated hard science fiction always imbued with deeply felt emotion ... Yet even at his cruelest Ngo is kind and his best stories are a darkly cheerful superposition of Neuromancer and new romance. They capture both the strange moment we are in and the stranger shape of things to come.'</strong><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)> </span><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>- </strong><strong style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(79 79 79 1)>Hannu Rajaniemi author of <em>The Quantum Thief</em></strong></p><p></p><p><em>Published by Encour Press. Cover designed by Baris Sehri.</em></p>