Service Model and Human Resources by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Sometimes fifth time's a charm! We've been talking about Adrian Tchaikovsky on and off in this book club for a while now, and have considered reading this book a few times. As far as we've gathered Adrian Tchaikovsky writes interesting stuff that connects with the here and now.

According to Wikipedia themes in his books include: "the frailties of human bureaucracy and the difficulty we have in seeing beyond the human perspective," and "the terrible things we do to each other and the dogged resistance offered by the victim-participants in the vile mills of misery that are totalizing governments and wars of aggression." Critics have commented positively on his "definitive" depiction of alien civilizations and his treatment of "huge themes about belief, artificial intelligence, legacy, discovery, alienness and much more." In an interview with Jon Sutton for the British Psychological Society, Tchaikovsky says that "Human perception of time is one of the biggest limitations of being human," and that this shortcoming lies behind many current problems, such as climate change.

Also, it's always fun to read about human extinction, and the apocalypse genre sells well to an audience that despises itself. This time we'll be outlived by AI and robots - which have developed free will. Props go out to them, as it's a bit controversial whether we humans actually have this trait.

Goodreads sells the main book as follows:
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To fix the world they first must break it further.
Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.
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The hardcover book - published by Tor Books - is 384 pages, while the audiobook - also publish by Tor - is twelve hours and twenty-one minutes. The short story Human Resources is twenty pages.