Powers’ wonderful novel explores human fragility in the face of a disconnect from nature and concurrent rise of AI. This is my review of Playground by Richard Powers.
‘And if the digital creature did not quite smell the smells and taste the fruits, it … formed new theories on what the island needed from the future. But it could not see below the surface of the waves.’
Richard Powers, ‘Playground’
Overview
The book’s central characters are two roguish twenty-something academic elites. They share a passion for board games like the ancient Chinese game ‘Go‘. One studies literature and poetry, the other computer programming. Go has an unfathomable numbers of possible play permutations, meaning it’s won through competitive play, feeling and behaviour. The characters growth in spirit and intellectual knowledge is nurtured through their play until one day, their relationship falls apart, through a diverging commitment to people and computers.
A life and death struggle
Power’s narrative subtly revolves around the notion of death and life. The characters place different value on their own lives, and those of others, including through family struggles and loss of loved ones. Their views and indeed relationships, diverge and collapse, around the idea that living can be short-circuited or cheated. Or indeed, that computers might eventually find a way to cheat death itself.
The world’s top ‘Go’ player was eventually beaten by a computer (in real life). The computer didn’t learn by forecasting moves but by playing against itself, billions of times. If life is a series of decisions with consequences, playing games (or arguing) with no consequence, is the way we learn to behave. What happens when computers gamify our lives for us? If they give us an answer without any involvement on our part is it even true? Can computers really cheat death or is that an illusion? What does it do to our relationships with each other and with nature? These are concepts all neatly tied into the narrative of Richard Power’s Playground.
The book’s characters, which include Pacific Islanders and a Canadian marine biologist, eventually intersect on a small island in the South Pacific, Makatea. It’s a tiny community of only 84 people where life has begun recovering after colonialisation and guano mining years before. That foreign investment once destroyed their culture and wildlife, fertilising the world but stealing the island’s wealth for itself.
Is this recovery about to be jeopardised?
One of our two main characters goes on to build a social media platform Playground that grows beyond all comprehension. No-one can understand how it works any more, even its maker. It has taken on a life of its own, one where people are entitled to play with complete freedom. Without rules or consequences, it has created billions of dollars for investors. Now, there is an almost infinite opportunity for data mining and AI training has taken on a new and least understandable form.
Eager to build on their self-proclaimed panacea, the founding player decides to invest in a real-life venture. This venture might even save humanity from itself – to cheat death. It might prove to the naysayers that he was right all along. In doing so, it will transform the island of Makatea, creating untold wealth for its small community.
The decision will be democratic. It will be given to all the islanders to decide. The investors’ AI tool is provided so they can make their decision.
Recently, I’ve been preoccupied with the differences between wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom is steadfast. It takes the form of principles. Knowledge changes with the wind and becomes obsolete with shifts in our environment, since the two are intimately connected. Can AI make wise choices or is it just an encyclopaedia? Is it up to humans to interpret knowledge to ensure it has the right intent?
What happens next in Playground by Richard Powers? You’ll need to read the book ; )
Read an extract here
Read more nature and wildlife book reviews
