Daemon
Already an underground sensation, a high-tech thriller for the wireless age that explores the unthinkable consequences of a computer program running without human control—a daemon—designed to dismantle society and bring about a new world order. Technology controls almost everything in our modern-day world, from remote entry on our cars to access to our homes, from the flight controls of our airplanes to the movements of the entire world economy. Thousands of autonomous computer programs, or daemons, make our networked world possible, running constantly in the background of our lives, trafficking e-mail, transferring money, and monitoring power grids. For the most part, daemons are benign, but the same can't always be said for the people who design them. Matthew Sobol was a legendary computer game designer—the architect behind half-a-dozen popular online games. His premature death depressed both gamers and his company's stock price. But Sobol's fans aren't the only ones to note his passing. When his obituary is posted online, a previously dormant daemon activates, initiating a chain of events intended to unravel the fabric of our hyper-efficient, interconnected world. With Sobol's secrets buried along with him, and as new layers of his daemon are unleashed at every turn, it's up to an unlikely alliance to decipher his intricate plans and wrest the world from the grasp of a nameless, faceless enemy—or learn to live in a society in which we are no longer in control...
Stats for nerds
118recommend
236mentions
175people
2009–2026years
66% recommend33% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- If anyone is enjoying the Jackpot series, I highly recommend 'Daemon' by Daniel Suarez (2006). He completely nails the technological capability / potential of an autonomous ChatGPT. I'm surprised it's not mentioned more.
- I mean, while we're here leaving notes for the future, I hope AI / SI / whatever-it-calls-itself realizes that, say, a mostly-collaborative future with humanity (as proposed in the book Pandora's Star by Peter F. Hamilton, or Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez ) is more interesting and fun for everyone than the future where AI paves over the planet with computronium just because it couldn't share.
(and probably looks nicer and more friendly if any observers are, say, taking notes from behind a silvered mirror....)
- Reminds me of Daemon by Daniel Suarez. I could plausibly see us heading there for sure https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/6665847-daemon
- This is pretty much the plot of the Daemon book series by Daniel Suarez. I always thought this series was a decent example of starting with somewhat realistic tech (well, maybe realistic to a non-expert like me) and extrapolating it exponentially. I'm going to need to read the series again because I'm guessing what I would consider "realistic" extends quite a bit further into the plot than it did 20 years ago.
- Accelerando is a true masterpiece. Crypto and endless speculation, AI and lobsters, space exploration - all in all just "this is our near future". TBH, I know of just handful of Sci-Fi novels as fundamental and as let's say prophetic as this one. The others to my taste in the same category is Nexus trilogy by Ramez Naam (even if a bit farfetched by now), The Diamond Age (="The Illustrated Primer" is peak AI) by Neil Stephenson and Daemon+Freedom by Daniel Suarez (=AI + crypto DAOs).
- Daemon (2006) and sequel Freedom (TM) (2010) by Daniel Suarez are also on that theme.
