Artificial

May 1, 2023

Kurzweil, whose comics have graced the pages of The New Yorker, offers a memoir in graphic format over three persevering generations. Her father, inventor/futurist Ray Kurzweil, saved documents belonging to his own conductor/pianist father, Frederic, who fled Nazi-infested Vienna in 1938; Ray recently turned to daughter Amy to help build a chatbot that writes in Fred's voice. Kurweil's first graphic memoir since 2016's award-winning Flying Couch. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 28, 2023
Part meditation on immortality, part profile of the author’s father—inventor and artificial intelligence pioneer Ray Kurzweil—this finely crafted graphic family memoir from New Yorker cartoonist Kurzweil (Flying Couch) takes an intimate approach to philosophy. Ray, whose Jewish parents narrowly escaped Vienna during WWII, hopes to connect with his late musician father by creating an AI “Dadbot” derived from his somewhat cryptic journals. Though Amy’s father is alive and much more knowable, there are parallels in her own pursuit to truly understand him and their shared legacies. Her comics convey echoes and meta-elements of the layered relationships between them all: an image of a skeleton hand repeated filmstrip-style is juxtaposed with her own hand holding a recording device; time spins on clock faces in a hospital waiting room; Amy’s childhood photo, painted portrait, and emoji avatar populate the same page. Ray’s obsessions come across as highly creative defense mechanisms. He believes information can translate to immortality, whereas Amy, who spends part of the narrative navigating a long-distance relationship with her boyfriend, an ethics professor, concludes that only love allows people to live forever. References range from Greek philosophers to Westworld, Pinocchio, and Alice in Wonderland. This melancholic yet loving investigation gets at how AI is as much about the past and what humanity has already created as it is about the future.

Starred review from September 15, 2023

New Yorker cartoonist Kurzweil's (Flying Couch) multilayered graphic memoir is an account of episodes from her own life, an examination of the legacies of her father (an innovator in the artificial intelligence field), and of her deceased grandfather, an Austrian conductor who escaped the Nazis just prior to Kristallnacht. She reconstructs archival materials in graphic form, including her grandfather's correspondence, newspaper clippings, photographs, and memories. This gives the work a collage effect, which works beautifully. Among other things, her narrative explores the possibilities of AI. Based on the papers and correspondence of her grandfather, she employs an AI chatbot to simulate conversations with him. The exchanges, while not consistently and wholly satisfactory, are intriguing and ask readers to take note of AI's possibilities. Kurzweil also implores readers to consider questions of legacy. For example, can futuristic technologies keep a loved one's memories alive? And what are the ethical implications of an AI chatbot serving as the mouthpiece of a deceased person? VERDICT Kurzweil's highly recommended memoir is unlike any other. It will leave readers with much to contemplate.--Barrie Olmstead

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from August 1, 2023
Kurzweil continues to expand the possibilities of the graphic memoir with an exploration of her patrilineal ancestors. Braiding together the stories of her paternal grandfather, an Austrian conductor and pianist who narrowly escaped Nazi-controlled Vienna, and her father, an early innovator in artificial intelligence research, New Yorker cartoonist Kurzweil, author of Flying Couch, navigates the complexities of recollecting and framing pieces of her family history. Pages expand with maximalist detail that reflects a true-to-life experience of digging into the past, where insights are dispersed between various family memories and physical artifacts often nestled in dusty storage facilities. Stunningly re-created archival materials, from newspaper clippings to handwritten letters, lend visceral impact to each discovery. The story of the Kurzweil family's innate connection to the vanguard of technology also breaches questions of collective memory and the ways in which technology might become a new conduit for the voices of the past. When do our loved ones really pass into the beyond? Is it when they die or when those who remain no longer remember them? How much can we learn from what remains of our ancestors? An AI chatbot trained on the correspondences of her late grandfather becomes a sometimes-inadequate interlocutor for Kurzweil as she reflects on her own influences and navigates her family's desire to maintain a connection with the past. Nonetheless, these interactions bear fruit as new questions arise. Couched in the casual conversations among family and the genuine desire to connect and preserve specific memories, these inquiries avoid becoming overburdened by stodgy philosophical ramblings or overly enamored techno-proselytizing. The deeply personal and sometimes frenetic energy of the book delivers an intimate and cohesive vision of the past as well as life lived in the influence of parents and ancestors. Intimate reflections and powerful visual elements combine in an exemplary work of graphic nonfiction.

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Starred review from October 15, 2023
Amy Kurzweil's debut memoir, Flying Couch (2016), featured her maternal lineage. Her latest highlights her paternal ancestry: she's deep in conversation and collaboration with her father, AI guru Ray Kurzweil--he's famous for his technological singularity prediction, which describes when computers become smarter than humans--to better understand her grandfather, Frederic Kurzweil. A gifted pianist, composer, and conductor, Vienna-born Fred escaped the Nazis in 1938 through the intervention of a wealthy American admirer. His immigrant life was marked with struggle; he died at 57 in 1970, 16 years before Amy's birth. For decades, Ray hoarded his father's documents and, with Amy Kurzweil's assistance, he's compiled the information to create an "avatar" of a man he lost too early: "If it's really done well, I could develop a relationship with it that's similar to the relationship I did have," he muses. While exploring potential immortality with her father, Amy Kurzweil intertwines glimpses of her partner--his illness, their geographies, their future. Even as she presents complicated concepts (because technology--and Kurzweil!), she deftly enables accessible understanding. Her inviting art is as intricate as photos and screenshots (because technology---and Kurzweil!) and as simple as a few lines. Panels vary throughout, with and without borders, in size and placement, as if a literal reminder of unpredictability, regardless of preparedness. Answers are few, but the questions inspire imagination, invention, and intriguing interaction.

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