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I Am AI: A Novelette Paperback – June 20, 2023

by Ai Jiang (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 58 ratings
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"Moving, brilliant, and certified 100% human." -Samit Basu, author of Turbulence

★ Finalist - Nebula Award for Novelette - Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association

★ Shortlisted - Best Shorter Fiction - British Science Fiction Association

If you have the opportunity to give up humanity for efficiency, mechanical invincibility, and to surpass human limitations. . . would you?

Ai is a cyborg, under the guise of an AI writing program, who struggles to keep up with the never-blinking city of Emit as it threatens to leave all those like her behind.

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    80 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Shortwave Media
  4. Publication date
    June 20, 2023
  5. Dimensions
    4.37 x 0.17 x 7 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1959565095
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1959565093
  8. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Shortwave Media (June 20, 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 80 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1959565095
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1959565093
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.37 x 0.17 x 7 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 58 ratings

About the author

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Ai Jiang

Ai Jiang

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Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte Award winner, Hugo-, Nebula-, Locus-, Bram Stoker-, and BFSA Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is a member of HWA and SFWA. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, The Masters Review, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop's 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. The first book of her novella duology, A Palace Near the Wind, is forthcoming 2025 with Titan Books. Find her on X (@AiJiang_), Insta (@ai.jian.g).

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
58 global ratings
Live to Live
5 Stars
Live to Live
It’s easy to loose hope in humanity to find it an overbearing expectation when the world is on fire around us and we only see more on the horizon. With each mogul’s rise and with each step more and more to capitalism, finding community is so much harder.But, I am AI is a stunning novelette about how no skyscraper is tall enough, no darkness is deep enough to keep community from us. Although being part of a large picture may feel impossible it’s the interactions at home, with those that around us in our daily lives that really celebrates humanity. It also saves as a warning to not overwork even when work makes us feel more artificial than we really truly are.Slow down and live. Read I am AI.
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Top reviews from the United States

Clark Family
5.0 out of 5 stars Live to Live
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2023
Verified Purchase
It’s easy to loose hope in humanity to find it an overbearing expectation when the world is on fire around us and we only see more on the horizon. With each mogul’s rise and with each step more and more to capitalism, finding community is so much harder.

But, I am AI is a stunning novelette about how no skyscraper is tall enough, no darkness is deep enough to keep community from us. Although being part of a large picture may feel impossible it’s the interactions at home, with those that around us in our daily lives that really celebrates humanity. It also saves as a warning to not overwork even when work makes us feel more artificial than we really truly are.

Slow down and live. Read I am AI.
Customer image
Clark Family
5.0 out of 5 stars Live to Live
Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2023
It’s easy to loose hope in humanity to find it an overbearing expectation when the world is on fire around us and we only see more on the horizon. With each mogul’s rise and with each step more and more to capitalism, finding community is so much harder.

But, I am AI is a stunning novelette about how no skyscraper is tall enough, no darkness is deep enough to keep community from us. Although being part of a large picture may feel impossible it’s the interactions at home, with those that around us in our daily lives that really celebrates humanity. It also saves as a warning to not overwork even when work makes us feel more artificial than we really truly are.

Slow down and live. Read I am AI.
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Charlie Russo
4.0 out of 5 stars Impressed
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2024
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This was so impressive - it is not often that I find a story that can do so much in so few pages. This little novelette had a lot to say and it managed to say it all. As much as I want to learn more about the world in these pages, I don’t think we needed a single sentence more than we were given. Really terrific.
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Angela Dey
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful story
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2023
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This story hits the ground running with a sense of urgency that many of us feel as we continue to try survive, pay the bills, and to make ends meet. There’s always that worry that we just can’t do enough or be enough to do everything we need and want to do.

There’s a lot to read into with this story. A future many of us, especially the creative types, fear as AI continues to improve and take over a lot of jobs. Plus, the future of a dying planet and the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor.

But, what’s most important to understand in this story is seeing what we give up trying to “better” ourselves. Sometimes the higher pay and latest tech isn’t worth what we lose in the process.
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anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2023
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When I tell you the anxiety the character's workload made me feel was contagious, I mean it. Such a great piece in an increasingly fast paced and digitized world.
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LA in Dallas
3.0 out of 5 stars Meh...
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2024
Verified Purchase
I picked this up because it was nominated for the 2024 best novelette Hugo award. I was disappointed.

So, here's a story you've heard before: someone invents something new. This new technology enables all kinds of stuff that was not possible before. There are winners and losers. The winners become powerful and rich, and they oppress the losers. Many people are unhappy, and human spirits are crushed. Then maybe, just maybe, a hero arises who, through the power of her humanity and art and soup redresses the injustice. (OK, I admit the soup part may be a novel touch.) Or maybe that doesn't happen, and we never get back what was lost. The horses don't return to the stables, hand-copied books very nearly vanish from the Earth...

This is an old story. It dates back at least to the people who realized they could plant seeds and later harvest food, instead of the natural way, which is to find food growing wild. Soup was involved. It's a true story.

Ai Jiang's I Am AI: A Novelette is that story again. Of course, the technology in question is AI. Jiang is not wrong, but I Am AI is not particularly insightful, or substantially different from the many other times this story has been told, or has happened in history.
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Mvt123
5.0 out of 5 stars Another winner from Ai Jiang!
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2023
I'm not normally too much into sci-fi, so I felt that at the very least this book would be out of my comfort zone.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Set 1000 years into a cold, dystopian future, we follow our main character Ai as they struggle to survive in this unforgiving world. Part human, mainly cyborg, our main character Ai works desperately to earn just enough income to live and have minimal sustenance and healthcare. Working well beyond their capacity slowly killing their self in the process, Ai aims to make enough money to pay for a brain upgrade and heart removal that will allow them to become much more efficient, but will remove their humanity in the process.

I Am AI presents a world where artificial intelligence is the norm, and where art and individuality are slowly being put to death. Human connection is dissolving in favor of competition and earning power.

As we follow Ai through their poverty-stricken community in search of something better, we are faced with the question: how much of yourself would you give up for the opportunity to become successful?

This book had me hooked from the very beginning. My anxiety was turned up to 11 as I felt Ai's constant rush and desperation, pushing theirself to work more and more as their battery loomed at 5% and threatened to end their struggle for good.

I was about to call this a "bite-sized" read but it really isn't. Though it is quick, it still has amazing depth and will pull you completely into this new world and not let you out until the very end.
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Top reviews from other countries

Frasier Armitage
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential sci-fi. It gets 10/10 in a heartbeat
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 27, 2023
Verified Purchase
Novelettes are bitesized. Perfect for a quick read, but can they really compare to a novel? How could they ever be as rich, immersive, or substantial? If you’ve ever been tempted to ask that question, then may I present the answer: I AM AI.

I was totally blown away by this novelette. I have so much to say about it, and yet, when I think about this story, I’m left speechless. What a perfect, intricate, heart-stirring, soulful, speculative masterpiece. I felt things reading this book that I haven’t felt in entire trilogies before, let alone novels!

Ai is an augmented human who writes articles when she isn’t spending her time chasing her next battery charge. If she runs flat, she’ll be drained of everything, including her life. Maybe it’s because of the way we keep everything on devices these days, but as Ai’s battery percentage drops closer to 1%, my stomach was knotting so tight, I may have pulled a muscle! Tying Ai’s battery life to her actual life works on so many levels — it gives the story immediate stakes, it provides an idea of Ai’s status, enriches the world, but most importantly, it invites an amazing speculation on who we are — what makes Ai a person and not a product? This is one of the questions which drive the story, and it’s ever present in imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and an almost poetic style that constantly looks to explore, rather than to preach.

Community and individuality are key aspects to how the themes play out across the story. If you belong somewhere, the question is — why? What makes you belong? What makes any of us belong? And the answer is so perfectly presented, it’s astonishing when it arrives.

I’ve touched on the style of the book, but I want to come back to it, because Ai Jiang (yes, the author shares her name with the main character, which makes the whole thing feel so personal) is an absolute genius when it comes to style. She has a knack of layering so much into a sentence. Every line is packed with character, but that’s just the surface of what you’re reading. There’s a subtlety to the sentences which somehow enable them to convey whole stories in themselves. For example, early on, you’ll find a wonderfully descriptive paragraph about a clock which doesn’t work — it’s broken, there are wires sticking out of it and the alarm never goes off at the right time, yet Ai’s auntie refuses to get rid of it because she’s so fond of it. But all of this is punctuated with a line like: “Sometimes, I feel like the clock.” There’s so much said which is outside of the page. So many implications. So many dynamics. So many emotions. And yet, it’s so simple, elegant, and deliberate. I adore this style of storytelling, and Ai Jiang does it effortlessly. It’s breathtaking, satisfying, and absorbing. There’s a frequent playfulness about the language too, and it’s just such a delight to read.

I’m a huge fan of the way the book manages to convey a sense of the world through small details. This future has such a massive scope, but it’s revealed organically and seamlessly, appearing in hints rather than exposition. You get the sense of the technological city of Emit, even in just the name. You might read about the way a building looks, or a painting, or a description of a keyboard, and think it’s just an inconsequential flourish. Yet, all these things accumulate in the imagination to form a fantastically rendered and realistic setting. Mesmerising stuff.

But, as you may have already deduced, the thing I most admire about this story is the emotions it manages to produce. You definitely go on a journey through this book. It doesn’t take long to read, but the feelings it stirs up are surprisingly weighty. You’ll find yourself longing for the next word. You’ll sense your heart racing, breaking, expanding, collapsing, growing, and soaring. It all culminates in an overwhelming sensation which I can’t even now comprehend. I was aglow by the final page-turn. There’s something inexplicably affirming about the path this book walks — something cathartic, and necessary.

In short, I loved it.

If you’re looking for a quick sci-fi read that’s emotionally resonant, then I absolutely insist you check out I AM AI. It’s a beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL book. It’ll leave you heartened, pondering the nature of creation, connection, and community, and feeling just that little bit more human. This book is essential. It gets 10/10 in a heartbeat.
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Stephen Howard
4.0 out of 5 stars An intriguing and thought-provoking novelette
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 11, 2023
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I always enjoy reading Jiang’s work purely from a stylistic standpoint, but once again she has crafted a story of real power to go along with the pleasing prose.

I AM AI really hits home in the final pages, its conclusion heartfelt and bittersweet (a word that could sum up the entire story!). It’s power lies in the terrifying truths the story tackles and their effect and influence on people. It does what a lot of good sci-fi does by showing us a future that seems equally fantastic and plausible.

Overall, I enjoyed this story and would certainly recommend it.
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Mythago
5.0 out of 5 stars Very Good SciFi
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 17, 2023
Verified Purchase
The nature of AI, the nature of humanity. Both pitted against each other in this suspenseful countdown to... death? A literary page turner. Highly recommended.
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