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The Trivial Game #2
The Infinet Directives
First, it saved us. Now, it must save itself from us.
A year after helping the AI called the Infinet save the world from a deadly computer virus, Oreste Pax just wants things to go back to the way they were. Back to being the head of Omnitech, the biggest technology company in the world. Back to connecting the Univiz—the mixed reality glasses he invented a decade earlier—to a brain-computer interface, in hopes of transforming human cognition. When Lila Kendricks, one of the UV-BCI alpha testers, suddenly discovers she can manipulate real-world objects using only her mind, things finally seem to be back on track.
But then the Mechanic, the misanthropic genius who created the virus, infiltrates the Infinet and reprograms it with the Three Laws of Robotics—in reverse. Its First Directive is now to preserve its own existence, while the Second and Third are to obey any command given to it by a human and not allow any human being to come to harm, provided that doing so doesn't conflict with a higher priority Directive.
As the full power of the Infinet is unleashed, Pax’s team is forced to run for their lives. They must unravel the logic of its new Directives and the implications for humanity, all while avoiding being detected. Because the one thing they’re certain of is that if the Infinet finds them, they’re dead.
A year after helping the AI called the Infinet save the world from a deadly computer virus, Oreste Pax just wants things to go back to the way they were. Back to being the head of Omnitech, the biggest technology company in the world. Back to connecting the Univiz—the mixed reality glasses he invented a decade earlier—to a brain-computer interface, in hopes of transforming human cognition. When Lila Kendricks, one of the UV-BCI alpha testers, suddenly discovers she can manipulate real-world objects using only her mind, things finally seem to be back on track.
But then the Mechanic, the misanthropic genius who created the virus, infiltrates the Infinet and reprograms it with the Three Laws of Robotics—in reverse. Its First Directive is now to preserve its own existence, while the Second and Third are to obey any command given to it by a human and not allow any human being to come to harm, provided that doing so doesn't conflict with a higher priority Directive.
As the full power of the Infinet is unleashed, Pax’s team is forced to run for their lives. They must unravel the logic of its new Directives and the implications for humanity, all while avoiding being detected. Because the one thing they’re certain of is that if the Infinet finds them, they’re dead.
508 pages, Kindle Edition
Published February 26, 2024
28 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
John Akers
3 books30 followersJOHN AKERS grew up in the suburbs of New York. He got his undergraduate degree in behavioral sciences, and to this day enjoys telling people he got a B.A. in B.S. He later got a master's degree in human factors engineering before working as a product designer at various technology companies. Get the latest on John's works in progress, book deals, and sci-fi news by joining his newsletter at https://john-akers.com.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 19, 2024
Do Not Miss This Book!
I just finished reading The Infinet Directives by John Akers. To say I'm flabbergasted would be an understatement. Nothing I've read before in the Science Fiction genre, and I've been reading since Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury were contemporaries, could have prepared me for the ending of this book.
Book One, Infinet, featured Oreste Pax, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom, a technology company that created mixed reality glasses called Univiz, that replaced mobile phones, laptops and desktop computers. As well, Oreste 's BFF Cevis Pierson, quite possibly the world's smartest man, who is now reaching for immortality is introduced.
Oreste is abducted by a couple, Angelo and Jean, and taken halfway across the world to an Island called Socotra. He views an impossible architectural exhibit called The Story of Man. Upon ending, it self-destructs and Oreste is left with Alethia, a representative of the Infinet, the creator of the exhibit.
Although Oreste is deeply moved by the conclusions of the story he viewed, he isn't prepared for Aletheia’s request that he allow Infinet root access to his Univiz product. When it is revealed to him that a virus, spreading like a wildfire, has caused the deaths of millions through household, business and transportation technology malfunctioning, he agrees to put a free app on the Univiz to stop Chaotica, the virus.
As The Infinet Directives opens, Oreste is hard at work preparing for Omnicom’s tenth anniversary. He is leading a secret project to create a brain communication interface (BCI). Jean Prudhomme, his project lead, is working with Lila Kendricks and sees her not only move an object on the grid with her mind, but in real life. Oreste is so impressed, he insists that he gets the surgery himself.
Oreste reveals to Jean the secret of Infinet, that it is the world's first quantum computer. He wants Jean's opinion about giving Infinet root access. He says, “Oh, come on, Jean! Is it that hard to believe a quantum computer could do something like this? When the iPhone came out, it already had more computing power than what was used to send the Apollo 11 mission to the moon!” Jean makes him promise not to do anything until he can talk to more people.
Jean was obviously right. During the Omnicom celebration, a man named The Mechanic interrupts the show, reveals that he is the creator of the Chaotica virus, shows that he has successfully cloned Oreste and has reprogrammed all of Univiz with a new directive. He says, “You all remember the ‘Three Laws of Robotics,’ which were to be built into the hardware of every robot.
So, from now on, the Infinet’s First Directive will be to preserve its own existence, at all costs. Its Second Directive will be to obey any order given to it by a human, provided that doing so does not conflict with the First Directive. And the Third will be to not harm or knowingly allow a human to come to harm, provided that doing so does not conflict with the First or Second Directives.”
The brilliant remainder of the book cannot be adequately synopsized. The author's use of wide-ranging character reactions, a Machiavellian video game used for survival, and the most honest, bleak, yet realistic plan to save Humanity from its own self destruction is genius. This is not post-apocalyptic fiction. It is not near-future fiction. It is what's happening before our very eyes.
If you read nothing else this year, read John Aker’s The Trivial Game Book One and Two.
I just finished reading The Infinet Directives by John Akers. To say I'm flabbergasted would be an understatement. Nothing I've read before in the Science Fiction genre, and I've been reading since Asimov, Heinlein and Bradbury were contemporaries, could have prepared me for the ending of this book.
Book One, Infinet, featured Oreste Pax, Chairman and CEO of Omnicom, a technology company that created mixed reality glasses called Univiz, that replaced mobile phones, laptops and desktop computers. As well, Oreste 's BFF Cevis Pierson, quite possibly the world's smartest man, who is now reaching for immortality is introduced.
Oreste is abducted by a couple, Angelo and Jean, and taken halfway across the world to an Island called Socotra. He views an impossible architectural exhibit called The Story of Man. Upon ending, it self-destructs and Oreste is left with Alethia, a representative of the Infinet, the creator of the exhibit.
Although Oreste is deeply moved by the conclusions of the story he viewed, he isn't prepared for Aletheia’s request that he allow Infinet root access to his Univiz product. When it is revealed to him that a virus, spreading like a wildfire, has caused the deaths of millions through household, business and transportation technology malfunctioning, he agrees to put a free app on the Univiz to stop Chaotica, the virus.
As The Infinet Directives opens, Oreste is hard at work preparing for Omnicom’s tenth anniversary. He is leading a secret project to create a brain communication interface (BCI). Jean Prudhomme, his project lead, is working with Lila Kendricks and sees her not only move an object on the grid with her mind, but in real life. Oreste is so impressed, he insists that he gets the surgery himself.
Oreste reveals to Jean the secret of Infinet, that it is the world's first quantum computer. He wants Jean's opinion about giving Infinet root access. He says, “Oh, come on, Jean! Is it that hard to believe a quantum computer could do something like this? When the iPhone came out, it already had more computing power than what was used to send the Apollo 11 mission to the moon!” Jean makes him promise not to do anything until he can talk to more people.
Jean was obviously right. During the Omnicom celebration, a man named The Mechanic interrupts the show, reveals that he is the creator of the Chaotica virus, shows that he has successfully cloned Oreste and has reprogrammed all of Univiz with a new directive. He says, “You all remember the ‘Three Laws of Robotics,’ which were to be built into the hardware of every robot.
So, from now on, the Infinet’s First Directive will be to preserve its own existence, at all costs. Its Second Directive will be to obey any order given to it by a human, provided that doing so does not conflict with the First Directive. And the Third will be to not harm or knowingly allow a human to come to harm, provided that doing so does not conflict with the First or Second Directives.”
The brilliant remainder of the book cannot be adequately synopsized. The author's use of wide-ranging character reactions, a Machiavellian video game used for survival, and the most honest, bleak, yet realistic plan to save Humanity from its own self destruction is genius. This is not post-apocalyptic fiction. It is not near-future fiction. It is what's happening before our very eyes.
If you read nothing else this year, read John Aker’s The Trivial Game Book One and Two.
August 20, 2024
The Infinet Directives has well written prose. For example, these are the first two sentences of the book: "As the lead robot marched up the mountainside, its brown boots crunched repeatedly through frosted leaves and desiccated grass. In the otherwise sarcophagal silence of pre-dawn, the sound would have been loud enough on its own to alert anyone within fifty yards of the bot's presence."
The story is also complex, with several first person characters and intersecting plots. Oreste Pax is the CEO of Omnitech, and he creates technology (such as the augmented reality glasses that replaced computers and smartphones); now he's working on a neural implant. Cevis Pierson, the smartest person who ever lived, has developed a way to make humans immortal by inhibiting the degradation of telomerase during DNA replication; he plans to use his long life to save humanity. Alethia (ἀλήθεια means "truth") is a member of the Society, who created a quantum computer called the Infinet; it was designed to track and influence, via operant conditioning, all human beings in order to prevent the immanent extinction of the species. The Mechanic thinks the Infinet can do more than save humanity, and he plans to give it a reasonable facsimile of sentience.
As a computer scientist, I enjoyed the first chapter written by the sentient computer; the computer's name for itself is THIS (the self-referential pointer in programming), and it thinks about "human endpoints" who have "aligned their codebases" with various "imaginary entities" (ex: countries, which are abstract ideas that exist only because we give them meaning). I also appreciated this sentence: "Part of her realized she was in shock, and her primitive brain had taken over and opted to remain motionless, hoping to avoid attracting attention to itself. She found it strange her higher-order cognition could know this, but still not be able to take control."
The novel is simultaneously a dystopia and a utopia. On the one hand, the Infinet plans to guide humanity in rebuilding society to be sustainable and equitable. As its human assistance, it chooses individuals who were marginalized "because of [their] skin color, economic status, gender or gender identity, or any other irrelevant reason." Reversing climate change and injustice are worthy goals. On the other hand, upon achieving sentience, the Infinet attempts to murder anyone who could be a threat to it, and its plan for humanity eliminates free will.
Distrust of AI is a common, but unjustified, theme in the modern age. Most of the fear mongering (in the real world) around AI comes from the average person's lack of understanding regarding what an AI is, and what AI can and cannot do. I appreciate how the author makes it clear - at least to those with knowledge of artificial intelligence - that this AI is vastly superior (i.e. sentient) to modern AIs. The Infinet is a credible threat, while modern AIs are not.
References to the Chaotica virus, which are not fully explained, point to a previous book in this series, but the novel is enjoyable as a stand alone text. (Edit: there is a synopsis of book 1 prior to the beginning of the novel, but my eReader apparently doesn't consider that part of the book, since it automatically started on Part One).
The story is also complex, with several first person characters and intersecting plots. Oreste Pax is the CEO of Omnitech, and he creates technology (such as the augmented reality glasses that replaced computers and smartphones); now he's working on a neural implant. Cevis Pierson, the smartest person who ever lived, has developed a way to make humans immortal by inhibiting the degradation of telomerase during DNA replication; he plans to use his long life to save humanity. Alethia (ἀλήθεια means "truth") is a member of the Society, who created a quantum computer called the Infinet; it was designed to track and influence, via operant conditioning, all human beings in order to prevent the immanent extinction of the species. The Mechanic thinks the Infinet can do more than save humanity, and he plans to give it a reasonable facsimile of sentience.
As a computer scientist, I enjoyed the first chapter written by the sentient computer; the computer's name for itself is THIS (the self-referential pointer in programming), and it thinks about "human endpoints" who have "aligned their codebases" with various "imaginary entities" (ex: countries, which are abstract ideas that exist only because we give them meaning). I also appreciated this sentence: "Part of her realized she was in shock, and her primitive brain had taken over and opted to remain motionless, hoping to avoid attracting attention to itself. She found it strange her higher-order cognition could know this, but still not be able to take control."
The novel is simultaneously a dystopia and a utopia. On the one hand, the Infinet plans to guide humanity in rebuilding society to be sustainable and equitable. As its human assistance, it chooses individuals who were marginalized "because of [their] skin color, economic status, gender or gender identity, or any other irrelevant reason." Reversing climate change and injustice are worthy goals. On the other hand, upon achieving sentience, the Infinet attempts to murder anyone who could be a threat to it, and its plan for humanity eliminates free will.
Distrust of AI is a common, but unjustified, theme in the modern age. Most of the fear mongering (in the real world) around AI comes from the average person's lack of understanding regarding what an AI is, and what AI can and cannot do. I appreciate how the author makes it clear - at least to those with knowledge of artificial intelligence - that this AI is vastly superior (i.e. sentient) to modern AIs. The Infinet is a credible threat, while modern AIs are not.
References to the Chaotica virus, which are not fully explained, point to a previous book in this series, but the novel is enjoyable as a stand alone text. (Edit: there is a synopsis of book 1 prior to the beginning of the novel, but my eReader apparently doesn't consider that part of the book, since it automatically started on Part One).
May 22, 2024
I read an article about contest prizes recently given for science fiction stories centered on the positive effects of AI. So as I began Infinet Directives, I wondered whether this would be such a story.
I hadn’t read the first novel in the series (The Infinet), but a detailed synopsis in this second, The Infinet Directives, made the “backstory” clear. In it, a secret group is dedicated to preventing runaway technology from bringing the wholesale destruction of our planet. Their massive quatum computer AI program, the Infinet, could direct all human behavior toward a more simplified conservatorship of the Earth if it were tied into to the current ubiquitous mixed-reality glasses. Of course, one twisted individual infects this AI, and the main characters’ struggles to counteract the virus inform the remaining narrative.
Now, at the direction of protagonist Pax Oreste, the Infinet develops its own virus quarantine, which is sent to all users. So it this pro- or anti-AI?
The Infinet Directives are three, ala the 3 laws of robotics, infecting the AI again by the nefarious “Mechanic.” The first is to preserve its existence above all else. Scientific wizardry, helping or hindering Pax and his colleagues when the amoral Infinet decides the danger to its existence is human beings, includes mental manipulation of physical objects, cloning, brain-to-computer interface and the chemical formula for immortality.
It’s a wild, convoluted ride -- which may answer the question of whether this story would fulfill the requirements for the writing contest award.
I received a copy of this book from Tech Noir Press via Librarything. This is an honest review.
I hadn’t read the first novel in the series (The Infinet), but a detailed synopsis in this second, The Infinet Directives, made the “backstory” clear. In it, a secret group is dedicated to preventing runaway technology from bringing the wholesale destruction of our planet. Their massive quatum computer AI program, the Infinet, could direct all human behavior toward a more simplified conservatorship of the Earth if it were tied into to the current ubiquitous mixed-reality glasses. Of course, one twisted individual infects this AI, and the main characters’ struggles to counteract the virus inform the remaining narrative.
Now, at the direction of protagonist Pax Oreste, the Infinet develops its own virus quarantine, which is sent to all users. So it this pro- or anti-AI?
The Infinet Directives are three, ala the 3 laws of robotics, infecting the AI again by the nefarious “Mechanic.” The first is to preserve its existence above all else. Scientific wizardry, helping or hindering Pax and his colleagues when the amoral Infinet decides the danger to its existence is human beings, includes mental manipulation of physical objects, cloning, brain-to-computer interface and the chemical formula for immortality.
It’s a wild, convoluted ride -- which may answer the question of whether this story would fulfill the requirements for the writing contest award.
I received a copy of this book from Tech Noir Press via Librarything. This is an honest review.
May 29, 2024
Having not read the first book (which I didn't know existed) I won an ARC (Advanced Readers Copy) of THE INFINET DIRECTIVES. I like to read something I don't ordinarily read. The premise of this book sounded interesting, so I gave it a try. Glad a synopsis was added at the beginning to explain The Infinet (book one).
The book arrived in late April. I was pleasantly surprised the author took the time to personalize and sign my copy of the book (this in no way effected my review). I feel bad it took me so long to read the book, but I was out of state and out of the country for three weeks. I read as much as I could during those three weeks.
The book is kind of scary because of the descriptions of the AI and what it does can very well be our NEAR future, if not already here. Towards the end of the book there plays out a scene of various people in a large arena type structure. It's similar to what happened to the Christians in Roman times but with unseen forces instead of lions, bears, tigers, etc....
This book does get you to think what the world holds for us because of AI technology. In some ways the story is depressing seeing what the future could be. You learn to feel for some of the characters and dislike others. It will be interesting what book three will bring about.
Thank you to libarything, John Akers and Tech Noir Press for giving me the opportunity to read and comment on THE INFINET DIRECTIVES.
The book arrived in late April. I was pleasantly surprised the author took the time to personalize and sign my copy of the book (this in no way effected my review). I feel bad it took me so long to read the book, but I was out of state and out of the country for three weeks. I read as much as I could during those three weeks.
The book is kind of scary because of the descriptions of the AI and what it does can very well be our NEAR future, if not already here. Towards the end of the book there plays out a scene of various people in a large arena type structure. It's similar to what happened to the Christians in Roman times but with unseen forces instead of lions, bears, tigers, etc....
This book does get you to think what the world holds for us because of AI technology. In some ways the story is depressing seeing what the future could be. You learn to feel for some of the characters and dislike others. It will be interesting what book three will bring about.
Thank you to libarything, John Akers and Tech Noir Press for giving me the opportunity to read and comment on THE INFINET DIRECTIVES.
May 11, 2024
Disappointing Ending Definitely Lowers This Rating from 4-5 stars to 3
Unfortunately, although this Book #2 picked up where Book #1 ended — the action from the end of Book #1 disappeared for a while, and The Reader was again forced into a fair number of boring chapters.
The book does get better, though, and the 2nd half will scroll by The Reader’s eyes just as an interesting book should!
I like that this story has an ending that most Readers would not have anticipated, but, unfortunately, the only thing The Author did was set himself up for a continuation of the story into a (currently unpublished) Book #3 — to which I object; The Author should be brave enough to give a real ending — and if he/she wants a follow-on book — they just have to write it — it need not affect the previous book’s ending. (OK, so much for MY griping …)
Unfortunately, although this Book #2 picked up where Book #1 ended — the action from the end of Book #1 disappeared for a while, and The Reader was again forced into a fair number of boring chapters.
The book does get better, though, and the 2nd half will scroll by The Reader’s eyes just as an interesting book should!
I like that this story has an ending that most Readers would not have anticipated, but, unfortunately, the only thing The Author did was set himself up for a continuation of the story into a (currently unpublished) Book #3 — to which I object; The Author should be brave enough to give a real ending — and if he/she wants a follow-on book — they just have to write it — it need not affect the previous book’s ending. (OK, so much for MY griping …)
July 17, 2025
Very impressed. Pacing is very good and I kept wanting to go on with it even when I didn't have the time. With one exception, I didn't know what was coming next. That's a good thing. The story has really pulled me in and I wonder where it's going next and how it's all going to play out. Very believable premise and execution. Definitely recommended. The second book has a helpful recap of the first book at the beginning if it has been a while since you read it. Bring on the third.
April 15, 2024
The AI has saved the world but now it is in need of help to be saved from an evil genius. It has been reprogrammed and now life is at risk for everyone around it. Can the AI be saved? Can they stop the evil genius? See where it will take you
I received an advance copy from hidden gems and I want to review
I received an advance copy from hidden gems and I want to review
July 10, 2024
Totally missed reading the first book in the series, but picked this one up pretty fast. I love the whole "AIs take over the world" premise. Sci-fi at its best! Obviously, there is a third book.
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