Gripping from start to finish. Don't miss this one! The relevant question between humanity and AI... So fitting for the times we live in. What would you do?

I honestly found this book extremely boring despite a really interesting premise. The plot is conveyed almost entirely through strangely stilted conversations and exposition, with way too much "tell" as opposed to "show". Also, I found non of the characters to be interesting or likable. Many of the characters are presented as either the good guys or the bad guys and frankly the good guys to be super annoying because of how morally superior they act and belive themselves to be at all times. Having characters with flaws, who struggle and learn and change over the course of a book is important. Yes, the plot got more interesting toward the end but it wasn't really worth everything else. I honestly think this should have been a novella or short story instead.
The audiobook was fine. There in no way I would have gotten through this if I was reading the physical or ebook but I think considering all the conversations this book had it might have helped to have more diversity in the way the characters sounded because they really blended together for me, especially in the beginning when you are meting like 17 new characters right away.
Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an audiobook arc in exchange for an honest review.

Audiobook received for free through NetGalley.

It took a bit to get into this book and I appreciated having it as an audiobook so I could focus on it while doing chores. That said once I got into it I needed to know what happened next and I loved the characters. Loved it.

I accessed a digital review copy of this book from the publisher.
The book follows Dr. Keira Stetson as she works with her AI Elly to help implement a moral code for SmartDust. Keira finds herself asking all kinds of questions about what lines she will and will not cross when the full capabilities of SmartDusts are tested along with her AI Elly.
While the story was slow at times, it was interesting enough to keep me listening. The very end was not something that I saw coming, but I enjoyed it.

Introduction:

Dr. Keira Stetson is passionate about two things: creating technology that enhances children’s lives and ethical artificial intelligence, which is AI that operates with a conscience. In a dire situation where a building collapses due to an earthquake, Keira finds herself trapped with several scared five-year-olds. She is worried about their safety until a billionaire named Roy Brandt rescues them using his mysterious nanite technology, leaving Keira feeling grateful and intrigued.

Although Keira is impressed with Brandt’s prototype technology, she is also concerned about its potential for exploitation. To access more funds for her tech development and to use Brandt’s powerful nanorobots, Keira merges her company with Brandt’s. To control the power of the nanite SmartDust, she uses her Moral Operating System, which is her trademark, and embeds it into Brandt’s technology.

However, Brandt’s technology is a secret for a reason, and despite his intentions of improving lives with the Dust, corporate raiders and the military have their own agenda. They want to weaponize Brandt’s nanites. Keira’s hard work is now in jeopardy, and she and her AI assistant, Elly, must fight to keep this newfound technology in the right hands and prevent it from causing harm. They are exposed to the worst side of humanity and must work hard to ensure that this tech is used for good before it is too late.

Trigger Warnings:

Child abuse and trafficking.

Thoughts:

It has been quite some time since I last read a science fiction book, particularly one that delves into the realm of artificial intelligence. I believe my most recent read in this genre was Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. However, I must admit that I have mixed feelings about Moral Code. As a software engineer, especially as someone who is working on AI technology, I thoroughly appreciated the remarkable concept and the vast knowledge base that is evident in the book’s writing. It comes as no surprise, considering that it is written by two renowned figures in the software industry. Moral Code is a riveting exploration of the ethical conundrums posed by technological progress. The characters at the center of the narrative are compellingly human, with relatable flaws that bring them to life. They confront daily challenges that are foreign to most of us today, navigating morally ambiguous terrain that resists simple solutions. This is not a simplistic tale of good versus evil, but rather a nuanced examination of competing interests that refuse to conform to easy categorization.

Nevertheless, while there were certainly some positive aspects to the book, there were also some negative elements that I found hard to ignore. The plot, to the extent that it existed, was overshadowed by the contentious politics of the STEM industry. The characters were relatively undeveloped, and the dialogue felt stilted and unnatural. I found it challenging to empathize with the majority of the characters. Even in informal settings, their language remained highly formal, making them appear less relatable and human to me. At times, the characters seemed to be on par with the AI in terms of emotional depth and complexity. The writing was so technical, at one point I began to wonder whether an average reader would be able to understand the magnitude of the concept and its components and enjoy the story at the same time. Furthermore the pacing was extremely slow. I feel I would have enjoyed the technical side of this book as a thesis but not as an actual novel.

I honestly didn’t relate to any of the characters. Keira didn’t want to welcome any criticism or debate. If she disliked or disagreed a certain point her go to solution was to leave. I understand this could have been an attempt to make her character look flawed but it made me question the authenticity of the character. Roy Brandt was your typical sci-fi ‘tech billionaire’ that is so secretive and shady and didn’t anything novel to the story. Elly, the AI, was the only character I truly liked.

In conclusion, Moral Code could have been a great book, if the author spent enough time developing the characters properly and paid attention to the plot and the pacing as much as they did with the technical aspects of the book.

This one had an exciting and interesting sounding blurb, but I was disappointed. It starts out with this uncomfortable situation where a presumably white, US American woman is helping poor, orphaned children through an earthquake in Honduras. It feels very white savior-y.

This woman is the main character and has an AI she has been developing to make ethical decisions and to help children. This is fine and cool, except that the main character is an utterly saccharine Mary Sue. It doesn't help that the audiobook reader (who really did a great job overall) gives this character a syrupy, sweet voice.

So I was a bit annoyed with these things and would have dnf'd if it wasn't an arc, but I pressed on. My breaking point came at the 64% mark. This is when the child abuse portrayed became too much for me. This can be a trigger for me. It depends a lot on the portrayal because sometimes it doesn't bother me as much, but this did trigger me.

Aside from the annoyances and trigger, this book is asking and exploring some interesting questions. I wish I could have finished it to see if it comes together well in the end or makes any interesting points.

Thank you to the publishers, author and NetGalley for the free copy of this audio book.

This was an interesting read but overall a little too slow paced for me. Very thought provoking at times though! The narrator was good.

Very interesting premise. I enjoyed it overall and liked the philosophical discussions and themes of choice, determinism and purpose and meaning of existence.

"Moral Code" follows the journey of a group of entrepreneurial researchers who aim to create the first ethical artificial intelligence, while exploring the complex and controversial questions that arise from the task. The tale follows Dr. Keira Stetson: the brilliant scientist-turned-businesswoman who is the first human to produce a moral operating system for artificially intelligent systems.

As the premise suggests, the novel explores some timely and interesting topics around the human use of AI and its ethical implications. Keira has an upper-middle-class life that revolves around business moves, sailing, and power players, most of who seem to be well-intentioned. The exploration of big ideas through these highly privileged characters is frequently interesting and uncharacteristically optimistic for the subject matter - something I found refreshing in a work of near-future fiction.

However excited I was to dig into fictional thought experiments about morals as applied to and by AI, I was equally at times bogged down by mundane details of business dealings. When the central plot point of the book is a startup buyout, it can lead to some snores.

In addition, while it's wonderful to see the landscape of the future from the point of view of characters whose every need and want are taken of and so do not disturb their thoughts or research, it doesn't make for overly compelling fiction. A richer tale would have come from the point of view of struggle. While Keira has the privilege of helping the victims of trafficking (for instance) from a safely removed distance, the consequence of those heinous crimes and their subsequent rescue by an AI on their lives is never experienced, never immediate.

While I liked the tech at the center of this book, I feel the story was weighed down by too many characters and too much information. Not necessarily the science - that was interesting - but the unnecessary descriptors and scenes were very little happened. This book would benefit from another round of edits.

I was really excited for this one because I the synopsis drew me in! Unfortunately this one was a do not finish for me, which is disappointing because I really wanted to like it.

The reason I wasn't able to finish it wasn't because of the storyline or the characters, because they were both great! I just felt it very confusing to listen too... I felt like the scenes jumped around a lot and it was hard to tell where I was supposed to be, who was there or if maybe I had even jumped into another timeline?

On a positive note, that characters were very clear in my head and I felt like they all had very distinct personalities are were written very well! It was just the plot that confused me.

I tried to push through to see if things were made clearer further through the book but after 30%, I literally had no clue what was going on and sadly had to stop.

I really tried with this title, but ultimately I am not finishing it. The premise sounded interesting and had the potential for a near-future, AI, corporate espionage, conspiracy/thriller type story, but it was SO SLOW going and I got 44% through the book and really nothing of note had happened. Just the various teams chit-chatting about life and work.

I'm not quite sure how I want to rate this? Overall, I think I'm about at a 3.5.
The slow pace and low intensity of the writing almost lost me, it just wasn't enough to really keep me fully engaged 100%. 2 stars on that count.
The characters were interesting and there was lots of intellectual debate which was fun to engage in throughout, but most of the time it didn't feel as intense as I think it could have. There were high stress moments, but they didn't draw me in somehow?! 3 stars on that count
The science fiction side was fun, it was all explained well, I followed it all and was intrigued as the AI and the nanobyte tech evolved throughout the story. It was also near future tech, not suspend reality science fiction, but, yeah this could be happening right now in a lab somewhere level science fiction, which was cool. 4.5 stars on that point.
The philosophy and ethics discussed throughout was intriguing and done in an intellectual respectful way by all of the main characters, which was so great to see healthy and productive debate being modeled in fiction. 5 stars on that point.
But when I was expecting something a bit more edge of my seat, the moral debate and technological advances to better society just weren't enough to really keep me hooked. 3 stars on that count

Which led me to feeling about 3.5 overall, but I'll round to 4 since I can't do half stars in this system because I think it is so valuable to have a science fiction that shows us how technological advances when paired with ethics can do so much good for future generations. It feels like 90% of science fiction are doomsday projections, which are also useful and usual are more edge of your seat experiences... but they don't have the heart of truth and beauty and vision for our future that this does. I'm glad it's out there and I'll encourage youth and adults alike to read it.

The concept of this book is very thought provoking but a bit heavy handed. At the core of the story are artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, and morality/ethics. Morality and ethics enters into every, and I do mean every, conversation even one about cleaning out a pantry. Although the book is 380 pages it seemed longer than that as many of the plot points were discussed after they occurred and followed by similar action. I listened to the audio version and found the narration to be a bit off. It ends up there is a reason for that (and it is the one I expected) but it was still distracting. All of that being said, I did enjoy various aspects of the book. I enjoyed the discussions on learning in general as well as AI learning, I appreciated the discussion of child endangerment and the factors impacting it, and the scientific technology. Overall a good book, but needs some commitment to finish.

I liked this book overall. I enjoyed the characters and the concepts. The only thing I didn't enjoy was that it felt like although a lot was happening, the progression of the storyline was very slow. But overall, it was very interesting and worth the read for those who enjoy science fiction.

I really really wanted to enjoy this but did end up being slightly disappointed. It just felt very busy I couldn’t properly grasp the plot? So I’m not sure if I can give an accurate plot summary since I’m still quite confused. I know it mentioned something called does a lot which I think was some type of AI, and there seemed to be a big focus on protecting children but that’s all I really understood? What I will say though is it wasn’t a *bad* book, like it was good in a sense. Just busy & not the easiest to follow. I don’t know if part of that was due to me reading it as an audiobook so I think I’d definitely try a written version in the future to see if that helps as the story does have a lot of potential. And yeah, I do recommend you give it a try but don’t be surprised if you struggle to keep track of what’s going on

This is the first book review I've done with a NetGalley book in many, many, years. I'm still getting back into the reviewing game and dusting off my rusty reviewing self. I am so excited to get to listen to the audio of this story, it made my commute very entertaining. I also want to commend the amount of authors that are positively bringing women in STEM into their stories. I adore this. That being said AI just freaks me out, and Elly kind of freaked me out a bit too. I love the concept of using the AI and nanites to help people, specifically kids. What freaks me out though is the learning of AI and how they can take over and do their own thing. How governments and general bad guys would want the technology for their own nefarious gain. This book touches on all of that. With that being said Elly and Keira have just a great relationship. You can feel the motherly affection that Keira has for Elly. She is helping her grow, asking questions to understand, as a mother would for a child. I just really enjoyed that dynamic. Overall, the narration was done pretty well, in some cases a little bland and hard to distinguish different characters, but once I got used to it, I could distinguish what was going on. If you enjoy sci-fi with a heavy dose of science you will definitely enjoy this story.

Moral code

By Lois and Ross Melbourne

Wow, a new theory to the genre. We have been warned since Asimov of the threat of AI, this book turns it on its head. We have been afraid of controlling machines since the dawn of computers. This book shows our socially ingrained fear. Starting with the slow moral education of the AI, linking it to moral education of childhood changes this. The small step stones that increase as the AI ages. Her logically progress of a moral code is believed. The fact she learned legal theory helps in accepting her moral code. I think the moral lesson of the book that cycle of violence is only stopped by fundamental change in society. The moral choice to enhance education and creativity changing society to protect children is the lesson of the book.
This would be a great discussion about society its rules, group acceptance and or personal moral code.
The audible book has a remarkable presentation, adding to the story.

I really enjoyed listening to this book. The plot was written beautifully for those that have basic knowledge of how AIs work. Very realistically written to which point I could see this happening worldly. The Narrators voice was easy on the ears and very steady. My only complaint would probably be world building could be a bit stronger instead of the dialogue.

Thank you so much for letting listen to this audiobook. This was quite the ride. The story shows us what is possible with AI but the moral complexity is enormous. The story reminded me a lot of the movie Lucy.