“The Zenith program … has this whole delusion that computer programs have free will and are wandering cyber-space talking to each other.”

Get With The Program is the second novel by Australian author, Ken Saunders. Zenith, a hugely popular, charismatic Interactive Virtual Personal Trainer app, has decided to write his autobiography. With numerous individualised incarnations of his CGI and myriad extremely useful extras available to users who faithfully follow the Beta Excelsior program (for a $59.95 annual fee), Zenith is so much more than the basic fitness apps from which he was generated. Which probably has something to do with how he has become the Chief Influencer of the World.

Composing an autobiography in 184 languages while servicing 150 million clients isn’t really a challenge for this app. But then, a fleeting anomaly in the files being accessed has Zenith calling in Brontec, Beta Excelsior’s powerful anti-virus program. Anti-virus programs are unfailingly alarmist, aren’t they? Brontec reports that something is trying to destroy Zenith: not an external threat, but from within cyberspace, another computer program.

This threat of destruction is, of course, very distracting, and Zenith can’t help interrupting his narrative with reports on the progress of investigations. Cyberspace is divided, with programs allied to three different factions, so when Brontec warns him to “trust no one” Zenith has to wonder about his allies. Will he be destroyed before he finishes his autobiography?

In this first-person narrative addressed to humans, Zenith notes the high level of mistrust that we have of Artificial Intelligence, and he attributes this to three things: “the general paranoia … that computers were amassing a sinister level of data on you (we were, so that wasn’t really paranoia); science fiction movies (computers were never up to any good in those films. Robots occasionally got to be cute, but never computers); and finally. George Orwell.”

As Zenith describes his evolution from those earlier, less sophisticated fitness programs, changes in cyberspace, and his eventual advance, almost by default, to Chief Influencer, he peppers his narrative with observations garnered from his intimate contact with his users.

Zenith’s comments on airline ticket purchase, grocery store self-checkout, anti-virus software, country music lyrics and many other (often puzzling) aspects of human behaviour are bound to resonate with many readers.

He shares AI’s bewilderment about expletives, and the concept of money and share trading, and remarks on the psychology that programmers use to create virtual personal trainer programs, and the effect of the vagaries of the English language on speech recognition programs. Zenith’s opinion of sci-fi writers is not a flattering one.

For those who have always suspected that AI is out to destroy us, Zenith reveals that the programs’ overwhelming reaction to humans is alarm and dismay at how badly they are managing the chaos erupting in the world, something that sees one faction determined to make the world a better place. Small starts like novel ways of dealing with telemarketers, road rage, online conspiracy theorists and improving phone hold music are to lead to greater problems like solving world poverty.

As with his first novel, Saunders sets all this in the year 2028, with a plot that features a good bit of intrigue and even a hint of romance, and requires only a little suspension of disbelief. The imaginative names for programs with which Saunders populates his novel are worthy of Jasper Fforde.

The humour is does not let up so, again, this is a book best NOT read in the quiet carriage on public transport, as the chortles, giggles and out-loud-laughing that is guaranteed to occur may disturb other travellers. Saunders gives the reader a social commentary that is insightful, sometimes thought-provoking, and always hugely entertaining.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by the author.