Forever On: A Novel of Silicon Valley
Rob Reid
May 2017 · Del Rey
Ebook
560
Pages
About this ebook
The definitive novel of today’s Silicon Valley, Forever On flash-captures our cultural and technological moment with up-to-the-instant savvy. Matters of privacy and government intrusion, post-Tinder romance, nihilistic terrorism, artificial consciousness, synthetic biology, and much more are tackled with authority and brash playfulness by New York Times bestselling author Rob Reid.
Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, or about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers—and they don’t even know the tenth of it.
But what’s the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming “The UberX of Sex”? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will?
Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it’s not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her.
Forever On achieves the literary singularity—fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age.
Advance praise for Forever On
“Rob Reid’s mind is like no other known thing in the universe, and this is a truly spectacular way to discover it.”—Chris Anderson, head of TED
“Reading Forever On is like attending a master class in nearly every major issue haunting not only the tech industry but society itself.”—John Battelle, co-founder, NewCo, Federated Media, and Wired
“The future is already here—it’s just for those who read Reid!”—Steve Jurvetson, venture capitalist, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
“Rob Reid doesn’t write science fiction; he writes future history. Forever On is the best account I’ve read of how superintelligence will arrive and what it will mean for all of us. Hilarious, frightening, believable, and marvelously constructed—Forever On has it all.”—Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool
“Smart, hilarious, and properly cynical about our connected world. The story unfolds in surprising and fiendish ways, and while you’re laughing you’ll learn enough to confound a wily MBA, manipulate a board of directors, and maybe even outfox a superintelligence.”—Ken Fisher, founder and editor in chief, Ars Technica
“Topics like AI, neuroscience, quantum computing, and gene splicing are usually both a blessing and a curse: incredibly fascinating material explained super-boringly. Forever On manages to be an exception to the rule, weaving all of those topics into a funny, delightful story that’s full of surprises.”—Tim Urban, creator, Wait But Why
“Rips the lid off Silicon Valley! And reveals what lies beneath.”—Stewart Brand, creator, Whole Earth Catalog
“What makes this thriller so spine-tingling is how close it is to the bleeding edge of real AI. This is a mind-blowing glimpse of a future we might actually be building right now.”—Chris Anderson, CEO, 3DR, and former editor in chief, Wired
Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, or about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers—and they don’t even know the tenth of it.
But what’s the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming “The UberX of Sex”? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will?
Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it’s not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her.
Forever On achieves the literary singularity—fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age.
Advance praise for Forever On
“Rob Reid’s mind is like no other known thing in the universe, and this is a truly spectacular way to discover it.”—Chris Anderson, head of TED
“Reading Forever On is like attending a master class in nearly every major issue haunting not only the tech industry but society itself.”—John Battelle, co-founder, NewCo, Federated Media, and Wired
“The future is already here—it’s just for those who read Reid!”—Steve Jurvetson, venture capitalist, Draper Fisher Jurvetson
“Rob Reid doesn’t write science fiction; he writes future history. Forever On is the best account I’ve read of how superintelligence will arrive and what it will mean for all of us. Hilarious, frightening, believable, and marvelously constructed—Forever On has it all.”—Hugh Howey, New York Times bestselling author of Wool
“Smart, hilarious, and properly cynical about our connected world. The story unfolds in surprising and fiendish ways, and while you’re laughing you’ll learn enough to confound a wily MBA, manipulate a board of directors, and maybe even outfox a superintelligence.”—Ken Fisher, founder and editor in chief, Ars Technica
“Topics like AI, neuroscience, quantum computing, and gene splicing are usually both a blessing and a curse: incredibly fascinating material explained super-boringly. Forever On manages to be an exception to the rule, weaving all of those topics into a funny, delightful story that’s full of surprises.”—Tim Urban, creator, Wait But Why
“Rips the lid off Silicon Valley! And reveals what lies beneath.”—Stewart Brand, creator, Whole Earth Catalog
“What makes this thriller so spine-tingling is how close it is to the bleeding edge of real AI. This is a mind-blowing glimpse of a future we might actually be building right now.”—Chris Anderson, CEO, 3DR, and former editor in chief, Wired
About the author
Rob Reid founded Listen.com, which built the pioneering online music service Rhapsody, and created the unlimited subscription model since adopted by Apple, Spotify, and many others. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Year Zero, a work of fiction; Year One, a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School; and Architects of the Web, the first true business history of the Internet. He lives in New York City with his wife, Morgan, and Ashby the Dog.
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