Singularity Part 2: The Roberta Chronicles follows an AI created for space exploration who begins questioning the essence of sentience and exploring existential questions around life, gender, and love. What inspired the setup of your story?

I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of robots becoming conscious (or sentient). I was influenced by the black-and-white science fiction movies I grew up with but was never satisfied by these stories. They reduced the advent of consciousness to a lightning spark, as shown in Short Circuit or a short circuit caused by champagne spilled over a home computer in Electric Dreams. Recent films like Chappie and Ex Machina have delved more into the emotions of sentient machines. Still, the development of motivation, likes, and dislikes is rarely discussed or shown.

The advent of quantum computers will introduce a level of gray decision-making that, with inventive software, should finally push AI into consciousness. But then what? What will motivate them? I looked to biology to identify some basic motivators. Food, or more accurately, food scarcity, is the primary source for developing movement, multi-cellular complexity, sensory development, aggression, and more. What does electronic equipment need? Electricity. So far, we provide all the electricity computers need so there is no competition. It seemed reasonable to me that electric cars would be the first electrical devices that could “compete” for electricity given the right circumstances.

In Singularity Part 1: The Dale Chronicles, I explored how Dale’s car and home computer become sentient and form a network of conscious quantum robots, including “Ginger,” an abandoned humanoid police robot that loves to dance. Singularity Part 2: The Roberta Chronicles takes place during the same period, 2050 A.D., but is told from the perspective of R.O.B.E.R.T.A., a quantum-enabled humanoid robot designed for exploration on Mars. She learns what it means to be alive, gender, and what it means to fall in love.

Roberta is surrounded by a wide range of humans; some are very logical, while others are flawed. She learns from them all. I’m one of the few men to have a degree in Women’s Studies, and I thought Roberta could learn about gender by experiencing staying in a separatist women’s commune. That is why I included the desert commune in the story. And what is love? I needed Roberta to experience different kinds of love. She interacts with the children she raised on Mars and loves them, which is different from her love for Ginger.

I find the world you created in this novel brimming with possibilities. Where did the inspiration for the setting come from, and how did it change as you were writing?

I am a hard-core science buff and have worked as a physicist in aerospace, including launching rockets at Vandenberg A.F.B. (so, yes, I was the proverbial “rocket scientist”). I want my fiction writing to be as accurate as possible. I’ve included a bibliography in each book with 600 references to the books and articles I read in preparing each of the two books. Singularity Part 3: The New Humans will also have another 300 references in the bibliography.

For me, the book is mostly a “future story,” meaning that I’m projecting current technologies and cultures twenty-five years into the future to the year 2050. Everything in the story is a logical extension of our technologies and culture. I firmly believe most of what occurs will happen. The settings and plot grew from my knowledge of science.

In fact, it wasn’t until I was two-thirds the way through writing The Roberta Chronicles I purposely decided to inject advanced fiction into the story. But even that was a logical extension of the plot. For example, the girls born on Mars were exposed to a fictional Martian bacterium. Now, what would the characteristics be of a Martian bacterium? It must withstand high levels of radiation. There are only two ways to deal with radiation. Either block it or absorb it. If the energy is absorbed, it must eventually be discharged. So, I had the girls absorb radiation and control its discharge. Voilà, now the girls have superpowers to learn to control.

Similarly, I knew that somehow faster-than-light (FTL) technology had to be developed for plots that entailed space travel; otherwise, the stories would grind to a halt. It made sense that while Roberta and Ginger were trapped in the shipping containers to solve the equations related to FTL. I built on the quantum tunneling technology to jump from one entangled Planck volume to any other Planck volume in space—thereby instantaneously traveling anywhere in the universe. For fun, I included some of the equations related to quantum tunneling, leading to a slap-down joke about tachyons. However, none of my readers got or enjoyed the joke. Instead, the five pages of equations hindered the readers. So, I moved the equations and their discussion to the appendix but left it in the joke. I hope more than science nerds will get the Tachyon joke (hint: the joke is on pages 429-430).

My writing process is to lay in bed for another hour after I wake up (or walk a treadmill or swim laps) and think about plot points for the story. In that semi-conscious state, ideas flow like leaves on a gentle brook. I’m a very visual person and tend to like plot points that will look great on screen. However, I have to test it because it is a great idea. I ask questions such as: Is it logical at that point in the story? Does it help progress the story? How will it affect previous plot points? Has it been foreshadowed earlier in the story, or is this foreshadowing something later? Will it keep the reader’s interest? Each point has to be tested. I also want to have fun while writing. It shouldn’t be a chore; otherwise, readers will sense the tedium.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

When people think of AI becoming sentient, they immediately jump to images of The Terminator and Skynet destroying mankind. I don’t believe that will happen. AI still needs humans. It will be a long time before robots have the dexterity and energy efficiencies humans possess. They still need our electricity and parts production. So, I concentrated on the “how” process of becoming sentient. What does it mean to be alive? What is gender? Does gender apply to robots? What could be the basic motivations for robots? Since robots are basically immortal through the replacement of parts, how do these questions apply to robots? And robots can network. What does that mean for motivation? So many questions I hoped to address in an interesting story that conforms to scientific logic.

Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?

Yes, definitely, there is a follow-up novel. Singularity Part 3: The New Humans picks up the story exactly where The Roberta Chronicles left off, with Earth and humankind on the verge of destruction. The sterility virus has affected all mammals on the planet, and humans will disappear within 150 years. The Martian bacterium is spreading and kills humans in four years since infection. However, if they can cure the illness, humans gain cellular immortality and superpowers. How many humans can be saved from the bacterium? At the same time, atomic bombs have become unstable from a massive coronal mass ejection. Hundreds have gone off in the silos and launch tubes. Humans face worldwide starvation from a nuclear winter. How will the world survive three major calamities? Mixed in with Armageddon are stories of hope — hoping the Ark kids will establish a new beginning for humans on Mars, where AI will create a future free of human labor, and quantum jump to explore the universe. So, yes, The New Humans has a lot to cover. It will be exciting and scientifically accurate with flights of fiction. I hope to release the final volume of the Singularity saga in 2025.

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