Book review of The Confessions by Paul Bradley Carr

LLIAM, an AI chatbot created by tech company StoicAI, has been online for eight years. In that time, billions of people around the world have been off-loading their every decision onto LLIAM’s virtual plate. Who should I date (or marry, or divorce)? Should I apply for (or quit) this job? What should I eat? Or wear? LLIAM’s been handling it all.

But as Paul Bradley Carr’s suspenseful technothriller The Confessions opens, that blissful dependence comes to a shocking end when LLIAM suddenly goes offline. At the same time, letters arrive in mailboxes around the world, all declaring “We must confess.”

LLIAM’s spilling the tea, and it’s boiling hot; transgressions by liars, cheaters, manipulators and even murderers are laid bare. And Carr adds in an even more devilishly inventive twist: Nobody knows who has or hasn’t received a letter, so fear of discovery mingles with intense suspicion as chaos erupts worldwide.

At StoicAI headquarters, staff are panicking and investors are demanding answers from CEO Kaitlan Goss, who took the helm after founder Martin Drake, viewed as the father of LLIAM, died. Alas, Kaitlan doesn’t know how or why LLIAM went offline or if it can be restored, and CTO Sandeep Dunn is acting cagey because he wants Kaitlan’s job.

Kaitlan knows she must turn to Maud—an ex-nun Martin hired to “act as an ‘empathetic’ advisor” and LLIAM’s de facto mother—for help, but she’s been living off-grid since Kaitlan unceremoniously fired her. (And, unbeknownst to Kaitlan, she’s received a damning LLIAM-letter about the CEO.) Can Kaitlan convince her to return to Silicon Valley before she loses her job and humanity loses its way?

A wild road trip ensues, filled with high-stakes danger and action, plus lots of provocative debate about how AI can help and hurt society. Advanced tech isn’t automatically infallible, but what happens when a critical mass of wealthy, influential people decide it is?

Former tech journalist Carr poses that and many other intriguing questions in The Confessions, an entertaining, thought-provoking cautionary tale that prompts readers to consider the human cost of unchecked technological innovation.