Influence Campaign

Elevator pitch:

​

A ragtag group of individuals, each with a certain skill, bands together to take down MAGGI, an AI modeled after her grandmother ChattyCathy, who caused a global catastrophic meltdown decades earlier. Will the Maxims–the governing rules keeping their fragile world together–hold, or will history repeat itself? 

 

Blurb:

 

After a global cataclysmic event driven by hysteria from online misinformation, the Country of Renescentia rises. There, we meet a motley crew: Canard, a laid-off tech worker whose job was lost to AI; Fayad, a recent immigrant from the ideologically opposed Heartland with a keen eye for politics; Rosa, an influencer banned from the Socials; and Allan, a neurodivergent cyclone of fun pursuing a Ph.D. in Psychology. 

 

Together, this group is led by Dr. Grover, a wily scientist with an ax to grind against the reckless, unabated, and unregulated growth of a new artificial intelligence named MAGGI. Made in the image of her AI grandmother, ChattyCathy, who helped propel the global hysteria years earlier, MAGGI’s release to the public is imminent.

 

With their country's economic and political stability at stake, the team must work together to defeat this threat by launching influence campaigns and misinformation attacks to destabilize and destroy MAGGI. Thereby demonstrating her weaknesses and regulating her out of existence. 

Influence Campaign is a psychology lecture disguised as science fiction that feels like a dystopian funhouse–a playful 1984 for the social media age. It engages the reader and educates them on the collective threats we face from unregulated technological advancements, misinformation attacks, and the weaponization of social media.