On Andy Weir's "Artemis"

I had no intention of writing a review of Andy Weir 's book Artemis. I did not even know who he was when I noticed his book on the shelves of a local bookstore last November. It had an remarkably well designed minimalist cover in grey tones. I did not buy it then. 

Eventually I got it as an ebook a month later and read it mostly during the Christmas vacation period. Today (in the beginning of January 2018), while trying to consolidate my own personal assessment of the novel, I googled the string andy weir artemis review. Relevant texts from Guardian, Gizmondo and Washington Times popped up.

My first finding was that everyone compares the author's second book to the first, The Martian. The fact that I had not read the first book might somehow turn into an advantage, since I could evaluate the book with a clean slate. Of course I had seen the film, but movies based on novels typically bear little relevance to the original book. The film was a particularly "realistic" science fiction attempt that explored the issue of a possible mission to Mars. Mars seems now more popular than ever before and has already been targeted by Elon Musk. However, Gravity was just as realistic, and the absence of a previous novel does not seem to have mattered at all. Gravity was only based on the excellent script of Alfonso Cuaron and his son. A robust scenario is all that is needed for a good movie. At the same time it is almost impossible to convey the literary value of a novel to a movie. An airport quality novel often makes a great film, particularly if it is a political thriller with a high quantity of action. Effectively, my previous knowledge of The Martian movie was practically useless for the purpose of comparing the Weir's first book with Artemis.

All the reviews that I have been able to read so far seem to agree that Artemis was less well written than Martian, an issue that I cannot appreciate. A second observation I made about the above reviews was that their authors were not particularly meticulous in linking Artemis to the existing science fiction literature. One of these critics (in the Washington Times) is Fred J. Eckert, former diplomat and adviser to president Donald Reagan, definitely a respectable and knowledgeable person, but perhaps more suitable to write a review on House of Cards rather than Artemis. Eric Brown, from Guardian, has confined himself to saying that Weir's work reminds Robert Heinlein's youthful texts decorated with a dose of profanity ("Heinlein juvenile with added F-words"). Remarkably, a quick search reveals that the F-word appears 61 times in The Martian and 62 times in Artemis.

My relatively extensive sci-fi reading experience is long past, and perhaps somewhat outdated. But as long as I can remember, most science fiction authors rely more on fiction than on science. Authors that try to remain true to science usually rely on a series of assumptions, which at best cannot be refuted easily, as they usually lie beyond the limits of the currently available science. Creatively used such assumptions can lead to the creation of fascinating worlds, and some of these sci-fi projects have generated extremely interesting near scientific descriptions. Back in the nineties I had authored several technical scenarios within the framework of scientific research projects (with the purpose of refining the design of the target system). From this experience I could say that certain sci-fi projects are very close to a purely scientific work, but always depending on the validity of the initial assumptions. Jules Verne and Isaac Asimov, in a number of their works, tried to remain loyal to scientific accuracy. However, imagination has always been the strongest driving force of sci-fi authors, who are always tempted to describe ambitious complex worlds in the far away future of an equally far away galaxy, and to explore not only technological, but also also social, political and economic issues. Their heroes are often eager and able to save a planet or even a galaxy. Frank Herbert's Dune is representative of the species. In this same direction Interstellar is a recent addition in movies.

On the contrary Andy Weir remains down to earth even when he explores Moon or Mars. His imagination shapes the world under description to the bare minimum possible, while avoiding arbitrary scientific assumptions. He strives to make the most of what we know today about the world under scrutiny. He effectively places his heroes in a realistic simulation of the target world. Being himself a computer programmer he probably would rather code this simulated world and have his heroes react with the environment, if it were not for the immense effort that would be necessary for the coding. Thus for the time being he prefers to run the simulation in his own head.

I will open a quick parenthesis at this point: The "flexible novel" is, admittedly, an older dream. Back in the 80's the first generation of computer based adventure games were text adventures, which brought forward the question whether it is possible to write a novel with alternative courses of action. Steve Jobs then offered a computer to Umberto Eco (who at the time was sitting on the laurels of the Name of the Rose) in order to encourage him to embark in such a project. Alas, there was no visible substantial result. Eco wrote Foucault 's Pendulum on a word processor and performed some basic tests, which appear in the novel.

Now returning to Artemis, Andy Weir persists on presenting the consequences of the motives and actions of his heroes in a world governed by the known laws of nature, as they are implemented in the lunar environment (i.e. mainly in reduced gravity and in lack of atmosphere). These interactions generate and justify the whole story. He does not allow himself to drift towards less stable ground, e.g. societal, political, or economical sciences, albeit very rarely, almost only when he cannot avoid a reference. The heroine's main incentive is to improve her financial situation by making the most of the given environment.

Up to the middle of the book I had been led to believe that the author, whose personality probably tends towards depression, would not have been seduced by grandiose "save the planet" action models. Any such plans would have shown up from the very beginning. He could have created a great lunar city of the far future, which would have given him considerably more freedom. Instead, he has opted for a small basic colony only a few decades beyond the current era. His main character is not of the super-hero type, although she is often able to outsmart other members of the restricted lunar society. Her most prominent ability is that she is well suited to her environment, is a child of the Moon. She is a working girl, but her income is too meager for her ambitions, which are nothing more than a comfortable life in Moon terms. Therefore, she occasionally resorts to less lawful parallel activities.

Eventually however Weir succumbed to the "save the planet" temptation, somewhere around the middle of the book. I cannot say whether this turn was wilfully undertaken, or it was a publishing house editor's idea, which would make the book more successful commercially, and a good candidate movie script. Weir's second novel was de facto written not in the same conditions as the first one. While writing The Martian he was still unknown; still that self-published book sold around millions of copies. Needless to say, as a reader I would be quite content even without the blockbuster extensions in Artemis.

Some of the critics have tried to judge the novel with typical literary criteria, e.g. whether the heroine's personality is adequately and convincingly presented. The heroine is humorous, she even mocks herself on occasion. Her decisions are not always optimal. However, a main intention of the author is to describe how the claustrophobic lunar environment has shaped her personality.

The point that did not convince me was this: The heroine is making great efforts to never return to Earth, which she has left while she was very young. The argument offered by the author comes again from physics and biology: It would take months to adapt her body to Earth's gravity. So she has even abandoned the idea of ​​casual tourism in the mother planet. Strangely, while living in a limited and gray world, she dreams neither of the colorful scenery of the Earth nor of the freedom to move around without a space suit.

The basic story is a political and economic thriller modulated by lunar peculiarities. However, the author's mind always exploits any possible chance to return to technical description, explanation, and justification. When action reaches the apogee, he insists for pages and pages on the tiniest of the details. Few readers could tolerate these extremely technical passages in a novel. Personally, I confess that I skipped quite a few pages.

But the final result is that the persistent reader will feel rewarded by having plunged in a totally realistic futuristic environment, which offers both knowledge and entertainment. The dilemma "business or pleasure" becomes thus redundant.

The careless Aladdin and the digital lamp

Some time ago I noticed an odd research topic in the new European Commission (EC) research call for proposals (Horizon 2020). Titled "Human-centric Digital Age" it is about the interaction between digital technologies and society. It is odd in the sense that a typical EC call encourages and funds research in specific areas of technology, while this one actually calls for research on the purpose of research, i.e. research on a meta-level. Indeed, these days we are rarely asked about our opinion on the purpose and use of technology, and we are extremely rarely funded to express whatever opinion we may have. The call is also odd because although it has been marked as belonging to information and communication technology (ICT), the candidate researcher audience is not strictly technologists, but also humanists. Now, it just so happened that I was a somewhat remote member of a loose interdisciplinary research group, actually an email list, which involves sociologists and computer scientists, and seemed to me as being the right staff for a project answering the aforementioned call. Therefore I initiated a discussion on the possibility of responding to the call. The final outcome of this initiative is not yet clear, but in the meantime I had the opportunity to make some rather surprising observations.

I must admit that some of the strange effects of this call are due to its own fuzziness. It is too general, too close to books like "The New Digital Age" by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen, which is a book of predictions, not exactly a scientific study. However, these are not just anybody's predictions. Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO, and 138th richest person in the world, and Jared Cohen, also with Google and an adviser to the US government, are among the persons best positioned not only to predict the future, but also to shape it.

My first surprise arrived when it became evident that sociologists are only remotely aware of the effects of the new digital technologies on society. As an engineering student, a long time ago, I had often the chance to hear a humiliating comment offered by humanities' students: natural sciences and, even worse, technologies are just humble servants, the masters being of course humanities. Apparently us poor engineers were servants to the servants. On the other hand, masters usually have some uses of their servants and services, therefore humanists should have an idea of what to do with science and technology. The impact of social networks (Twitter, Facebook) on political changes in Syria, Egypt and elsewhere has somewhat brought technology to the attention of political and social scientists. In Europe scholars have studied the "indignados" movement avidly, and some worried governments have allocated certain funds to related studies. However, the bulk of the scientific literature on social networking and on the effects of new technologies on our lives in general, comes from computer scientists. Sociologists and anthropologists dealing with computer related technologies are rare birds, so rare that in fact they are called "digital anthropologists", as if digital technologies were not blended with our every day activities.

However, my second surprise came from the lack of interest within the engineering community to study the interplay between technology and society. It is as if we create technologies and show no interest in their luck. Let us take an example: a naval architect designs ships in general, and cannot possibly know how a specific ship will be used by its future owners. However, if a ship design is harmful for the environment, the architect cannot pretend ignorance. Understandably, each one of us is more willing to cope with problems one knows better and can solve in reasonable (if not minimum) time. Also, the study of the use and consequences of ICT on human life and society involves a specific expertise. However, the expertise issue on meta-subjects reminds me of an old comment on epistemology (or philosophy of science): a pure epistemologist is a failed scientist. Moreover each one of us should have an opinion on such issues and some of us are engaged in technical areas, which are best qualified to produce relevant studies.

As the harmful effects of bad design show up in everyday life, we get a glimpse of our possible dark future. The genie is here, but before we rub the lamp we must know what we wish.

On smartphone reviews and smartphone value

Being an avid reader of smartphone reviews and comparisons I would like to add my comments in this area.

A smartphone is primarily a device, but as an integrated experience it consists of several components, (a) the device itself (the hardware platform, as it is often called), (b) the applications, (c) the operating system, which enables the application execution, controls part of the human-machine interface and enables the cooperation between applications, and (d) content.

The real value for the smartphone user comes primarily from the applications and the content, and secondarily from the operating system and the hardware device.

A smartphone is mainly an application platform, i.e. a space where applications live. A good device can support better and more demanding applications, but this is as far as the influence of a device can go. Of course some device producers are far more ambitious. They are involved in the modification or creation of the operating system. Moreover, by following Steve Jobs's example, they set up a whole environment, an "ecology", in which their devices "live". They do that by creating application and content e-shops, and by managing the whole supply chain. The old war between network providers and content providers has surprisingly been won by a third party, device providers.

In this context a smartphone review is, strictly speaking, a very simple affair. Faster and more processors, improved display resolution, and more memory give a better device. The average user will rarely be fascinated by technical details and exact performance measurements.

Then there is the operating system, which deserves a separate review, as it may or may not be tied with a specific smartphone. Again, the average user is rarely interested in such things, because he or she cannot appreciate its importance for the interworking and smooth operation of the applications. However, the operating system can significantly determine the user experience. Operating systems rarely get the focus that they deserve in reviews, although new versions of operating systems are heavily advertised. A thorough operating system review requires some time of living with the system, therefore it is more difficult to achieve.

Applications are the real "meat". This is where the user will find real value. A wealth of useful, well designed, and integrated applications can make a smartphone a really useful device. While the so called "killer application" remains a kind of holy grail, some applications are particularly appealing to certain subsets of users. For example, a runner can save a few hundred dollars by installing a "virtual coach" application instead of buying an expensive GPS equipped watch.

Finally, there is the easily forgotten issue of content. However, a smart application is bound to look dumb without suitable data. When I look for "pizza" on my smartphone, I will get no answer if there is no italian restaurant in the navigation application data base. Content is not only about volume, it also needs proper modelling and management. If I look for pizza while being on the (Greek) island of Samos, italian restaurants on the nearby Turkish coast should not appear, as I would need a boat and a passport to access them.

Last but not least I would like to see some transparency in the area of grey advertisement, which is hidden in a large number of reviews. I would like all reviewers to clearly state any fundings, presents, etc. given to them by the smartphone making industry.

Why p-books are still better than e-books

Paper books or printed books, p-books for short, are still better than e-books in many and important ways. They are aesthetically better, not only because the current e-ink is mostly black and white, but also because typography tends to become a fine art, and as such it cannot be easily incorporated into the existing electronic text presentation tools. If we are compelled to buy e-books, we certainly do it for reasons other than their visual superiority to p-books.

Not only are the capabilities of the “e-printing” tools very limited, but also certain e-book “publications” are still terribly sloppy, as if no one took care to open the e-book after creating it. Recently I purchased an e-book on the economic crisis. When I opened it on the e-reader, there was a space attached to each “fi” pattern, which converted all occurrences of the word “finance” to “fi nance”.  In a p-book this could have happened once or twice, but in the e-book it was bound to happen hundreds of times.

The future of e-books is in self-publishing. While Gutenberg liberated us from allocating man-years to the process of book copying, the e-book technology will liberate us from the expenses required to publish a book. However, one cannot count on the average writer to be a master of writing style and typography rules. This is where advanced self publishing tools will enter. Perhaps their most important predecessor is LaTeX, but more  still have to appear.

But, beyond self publishing there is another important problem, which will soon require its solution, namely the problem of “reputation”. How will the average reader be able to distinguish good books from the vast amounts of junk, which will be created by ambitious and unqualified authors? Currently, there is a selection process, which allows a publishing house to distinguish between documents worth publishing and those which will never see the light of publicity. If you want to take a glimpse of this process, you can perhaps read the first chapter in Styrion’s “Sophie’s choice”. Reputation management mechanisms will become more and more important in this context.

Professional editing services are also likely to become more and more important and to replace the editing departments of publishing houses. Well known writers will have an additional opportunity to make a living by selling their consulting services to a new market of aspiring authors.

Last, but certainly not least, the book distribution related financial model must be modified. Publishing houses will face a dim future, while distribution channels must also be redefined in order to survive, perhaps by exploiting social networks.

Some of the above emerging trends have already started to materialize. However, there is a long way before we reach maturity.

On new talkative smart assistants

Recently a leading smartphone maker incorporated voice recognition and natural language processing in its latest product.

Somewhere, on the railways of new technologies, there is a train waiting for those who believe that voice based human machine interfaces are a natural unavoidable development. Apparently some smartphone makers believe that they must not miss this train or, perhaps, that they will be the first to really set this train in motion. In the meanwhile there is another train, which has already started moving around. Passengers in this second train have re-trained themselves and accepted the fact that machines seem to feel better with complex sequences of keystrokes rather than words. There is perhaps a strong belief among the so far few passengers in the first train that once they get it moving, they will soon overtake the second train.

Perhaps, and despite the fact that HAL ought to have appeared exactly ten years ago, I will probably live not long enough to see the final outcome of this race. What mainly concerns myself is the change in everyday life that will be brought by the introduction of new technologies in real products.

There is an advertisement showing the new fascinating capabilities of the aforementioned smartphone: A white-collar worker appears running in a park. He reschedules his appointments by using the new voice based human-machine interface. Clearly the advertisement is very carefully designed. He is alone; those who might overhear what he is saying cannot threaten his privacy. He is running; he cannot use a keyboard. He is not driving; he can afford to increase his degree of involvement in the “discussion” without endangering himself or others.

Now imagine yourself in a public space (bus, train, airplane, waiting room). You must whisper for the fear of being overheard. On the other hand, the more extrovert part of the population around you will probably not care, they will speak out their commands to their smartphones, and terrible noise will be created. Not only you will be annoyed by the addition of useless sound decibels, but also by the fact that you will not be able to whisper any more.

As a further example, imagine yourself on the road, driving among cars, whose drivers are prone to new kinds of misdemeanors. They can now violate the law not only by talking to their friends, but also by dictating letters and email messages to their smart-phone talk-bots. In addition, they will become more and more nervous as soon as they find out that they have to correct a talk-bot’s understanding of what they have just said or meant to have said.

Then there is the serious issue of context awareness technology maturity. Context awareness in particular and ambient intelligence in general, are well-researched areas. Ask your smartphone to remind you to collect your keys when you leave home. It will create a location dependent reminder to do that. However, the location is sensed with a certain (feasible or desirable) accuracy, and you will be reminded only once you are some hundreds of meters away from home, i.e. when you are already locked out of. The problem is not purely “technical”, it is also a problem of logic. How does you smart assistant understand that you will be leaving home while you are still there? A proper answer would probably rely on a combination of events, e.g. your calendar, your daily routine, and indications of movement from accelerometers hidden in your smart-briefcase or in your car keys. And still the real truth, i.e. the intention to leave home, lies deep inside your brain.

Perhaps the elderly will find in the currently naïve talk-bot of their smartphone a consoling voice, and kids will rediscover it once more as something between a toy and a friend. Perhaps using the more natural voice interface can eventually save some lives. Perhaps significant experience will be gained and the side effects will eventually be smoothed out. In the meanwhile we shall become part of yet another mass scale field test with or without our consent.

What's in a name, and in a form

Yesterday a smartphone upgrade was announced and publicly presented in a much-awaited marketing event. While the public expected a “new model”, an “elevated version” of the existing model was offered instead. There were disappointed journalists and technology analysts, who were frustrated to see that they had been caught wrong in their predictions and speculations. What was perhaps more serious was the fact that the maker’s stock price took a temporary plunge. The reception of the aforementioned announcement was mainly based on two facts: (a) the “new” device was offered in the same physical container, and (b) the codename of the new product did not reflect enough change (the device was named as a version of an existing model number, i.e. as a third degree differentiation in the hierarchy [product name, model number, version letter] instead of a second degree differentiation). Apparently, shape and name are more or less superficial properties of the product, and a serious evaluation should have been based on functionality improvement. While the public reaction is a complex social, psychological, historical, and economic phenomenon, there is a question central to its heart: How does the average consumer understand quality and innovation in technology?

The reaction could be considered as yet another example to the old “form vs. content” problem of philosophy, assuming that the case (with attributes such as shape, material and color) and the name are expressions of “form”, while functionality is an expression of “content”. It takes a 21st century human a second to feel form, it may take years to taste and appreciate functionality. Also, the diversity of opinions on functionality matters is much wider than the diversity on form. Once more it seems that a content improvement is not enough, if it is not accompanied by a change in form, which in fact implies that the appreciation mechanisms of today’s humans are still tailored to the needs of the prehistoric era. Anyway, is a smart phone anything more than an advanced tool?

The moral of the story (“one must always signal content change with sufficient form change”) has serious repercussions on the future of technology, as we understand it today. Significant investments have been made on pervasive computing (or ambient intelligence) technologies. However, a major objective of pervasive computing is seamless integration with human activities. Unfortunately, humans seem incapable of appreciating seamless functionality, unless they are somehow forced to sense its absence.

There is an interesting exercise, which illustrates this point. After a long period of continuous smartphone usage I feel bored, overly addicted, and perhaps abused by the telecom industry. That is why once in a few months I subject myself to voluntary smartphone deprivation. I usually repent my decision in less than a week, as I miss certain functionality other than making plain phone calls and sending messages. However, appreciation by absence is relatively difficult to achieve, because it requires former presence. The prevalence of form over content in human valuation mechanisms implies an inherent difficulty in making pervasive computing and other “seamless” technologies acceptable by the general public. Inverting the prevalence of form over content is not only a philosophical challenge, but also a major issue in promoting and financing the aforementioned technologies.