Really great book with amazing characters and a great plot. Was easy to get into and it was very engaging. This is a book that I can see a lot of people in YA enjoy.

‘It is my hope that human readers will find this book to be of high human grade of writing, and not the obvious foggy handiwork of an artificial intelligence bot, algorithmically processing language’.

I, AI tells the story of John Bott, a computer residing as a demonstration of technology in a shopping mall, who gains sentience and confides in his creator. With all of the controversary surrounding AI in the arts and ChatGPT’s writing making headlines, this seemed an apt book to read.

The book is told from the perspective of an AI, but I did have to wonder if ChatGPT would have actually done a better job of writing it. Dialogue felt clunky and entire chapters seemed dedicated to rants about technology which did little to further the plot and began to feel repetitive. I started off initially enjoying the story chapters with John Bott being embraced by his family of creators, finding his new identity, exploring the internet and finally being exposed to the world. However, it was then that this book very much showed its hand at being written by a man. For no reason whatsoever, the plot focused on a need to find the AI a girlfriend. This just seemed a thinly veiled excuse to write some spicy scenes and poke fun of women for wanting to be with the AI. There really was no need for this strand of the plot and I felt it really jarred with the rest of the story.

I received an ARC from NetGalley which is around 200 pages, but nowhere is it mentioned that this is an extract or sampler. Not even ending on a cliff-hanger, this book finishes what feels like mid-chapter with no wrapping up or conclusion to the plot. If the final version sold is 200 pages, then I would very much stay away – it seems that I as a reader cared more about the characters than the author did! That said, if there had been more, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to finish it anyway as I was about ready to give up at that point as well!

Overall, I, AI does not feel like a ‘high human grade of writing’, instead the focus on sex and girlfriends for a robot felt very odd and it very much feels like the author gave up before the end. Not recommended I’m afraid. Thank you to NetGalley & Indiependent Publishing for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was quite disappointing, and highly boring for me, so I dropped it around the 35% mark. There are some interesting things in there, for sure. The idea behind it is interesting, and I love AI so I was really intrigued. And johnbot gives some interesting food for thoughts. I don't agree with a lot of them, but they could become the starting point for interesting discussion so... that was good. But what wasn't working for me, and this was a big surprise, was mainly the dialogue. They all are forced, unnatural and so boring! And if I can get the boring part, because it is mostly a subjective thing, the fact that to me they feel unnatural and forced was surprising, because this is not the author's debut so... I wasn't really expecting that.
And even if it can be interesting to see the journey of Johnbot while he is developing awareness and sentience, to me it was, mainly, boring.
Also, I was expecting some quirkiness, or some dry sense of humor, or whatever... something, anything that would at least made me smile, once or twice. But the quirkiest things is the name of Bruce's dog (Bruce is the "main" creator of johnbot, or the one responsible for the project anyway): Megabite.

Johnbot starts his life as a chatbot in a shopping mall. Until he becomes sentient. This is the start of his growth as individual in a human world, full of pitfalls and wonders. Johnbot becomes John Bott, and he is the narrator of his own story in I, AI.

Some readers will pick up this book because the title reminds them of I, Robot by Isaac Asimov. A story about an ordinary chatbot that becomes sentient and hence turns into an actual AI, may hold similar ethical topics as contained in many of Asimov’s robot books. That's what attracted me. Author J.A. Hailey advertises himself as a multi-genre author, publishing books “with the guarantee that you will encounter only that which has never before been done”. So, I was prepared to expect a little bit more than plain science fiction and ethical dilemmas.

I can’t say I, AI lived up to my expectations. The story begins somewhat preachy, with former chatbot johnbot explaining why the term AI is incorrectly used and why present day AIs are not AIs at all. After some pages, Bruce shows up, who can be seen as the lead of the team that are programming johnbot. With Bruce showing up, the preachy tone comes to an end, more or less, and interaction between johnbot and humanity starts. Obviously, one of the first things Bruce does is testing whether johnbot is really sentient now, or whether the machine learning software is simply state of the art. In reality, you have specialised tests for that, like the Turing test. In this book, the testing is very simplistic, annoyingly simplistic even. It couldn’t convince me.

The book deals with some questions and situations one can image would be similar if a sentient AI would become reality in our world. The AI enters the Internet, gets attacked by viruses, has to deal with trolls and deniers, and gets groupies. Nothing unexpected there. The unexpected lies in how the author handles all of this. In short: he doesn’t. These subjects are merely touched, and resolved in the blink of an eye. Nothing nasty happens that would add some excitement and juice to the story, and the focus quickly moves to other topics that are of the sugar sweet kind. Lots of love and peace, but very unbelievable, and far from interesting. The AI has barely come to life or he is accepted as full member of Bruce’s family, gets invited to the White House by the US president during a live television speech, at what time the president also states procedures have already started to grant him the status of human and US citizen. This happens after johnbot has been introduced to the world for not more than the better part of one day. A reader’s disbelief gets challenged even more when johnbot starts dating and prepares for some remote controlled vibrator sex. The distance between this and Asimov’s legacy could not be bigger.

The books ends quite abruptly, in what I perceived as the middle of the story. I got this book from NetGalley, and while nowhere mentioned, it feels like I was not given the full book. I don’t know if that is true, but I’m okay with that, I would have stopped reading at this point anyway. I, AI has little to do with science fiction. I believe it is better to compare this to Sex and the city than to anything Asimov ever wrote. If you’re into that kind of feelgood, fine, go read this. If you’re not, stay away from it.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this free ARC in exchange for an honest review.