Clever, hilarious, and terrifying look at The Every--a company that is Amazon merged with Apple (I think?). Their smart apps are more more more, to "improve" people's lives and make them safe. They know all metrics (health, steps, speech, everything). They control their employees' lives for maximum "health" and "safety".

Excellent. ( )

Loved it!

One question - why did she leave her phone? ( )

Eggers follows up his highly successful and "buzzy" techno-dystopian novel "The Circle" with something even more wildly over the top, and more devoid of humor. (I honestly can't figure out why reviewers and commentators describe this stuff as funny.) "The Circle" at least had the benefit of being a very early fictional critique of the sinister aspects of the digital world, and when I first read it I found it fairly engaging and thought-provoking. With 'The Every", set some years after "The Circle", there are no longer several internet behemoths because they have all merged into one giant all-seeing, all-knowing mega company called "The Every". Into its cult-like campus drops Delaney, who hopes to infiltrate The Every and bring it down. That's the incredibly naive notion that drives whatever plot there is in this very long satire. Vignette follows vignette, wherein Delaney floats through various AI product groups and meets many earnest cult members (employees) working on silly, useless online apps, each one more bizarre and behavior-modifying than the last. She soon discovers that none of her plans for sabotage will ever work, because human beings have apparently been conditioned to reject personal privacy and decision-making in all aspects of their lives. So yes, one can easily see how unbridled AI and monopolistic power can result in great evil and terrifying unintended consequences. However, this novel runs out of steam about 2/3 of the way through (and again - it's way too long) when it becomes clear that Delaney is going to fail, and I found it a struggle to make it all the way to the end.



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«Siete stressati per l’impatto quotidiano che avete sul pianeta? Restate dove siete. Avete paura di poter spaventare gli elefanti marini e ammazzare le pecore? Restate dove siete. Vi preoccupa l’idea di usare benzina, automobili, strade, treni e acciaio? Restate dove siete.»

Un seguito che parte bene e finisce decisamente male (no spoiler). La prima parte convince e diverte, per la sua lucida critica del mix di annullamento della privacy e buonismo che pervade i nostri tempi. Poi, pian piano, qualcosa si inceppa e forse pure Eggers si annoia. Come detto, il finale decisamente non convince. Nota a margine: traduzione sciatta e poco curata. ( )

Organic sequel to the Circle. Organic and inevitable, if the States keep ducking out of their responsibility to restrain the tech giants' power as they do (criticising the Europeans for being too strict at the same time).
But of course this is not who the criticism of "The Every" is directed at at all!
Obviously, like in the Circle, it's us who make all that happens possible. Forget about ruthless businessmen / -women or unethical profit-oriented decisions. It's us, stupid!
So much for the message. But then, there isn't really anything apart from that. The plot, the characters, the descriptive passages, they all serve one purpose only - the message. So it's not a literary work, so to speak. It's like a chronology of events BEFORE they happen. Hence, it might turn out not even to be a work of fiction, but a premature historical account.