A dystopian novel about unchecked technology? Check.

Which world is in the biggest mess - the fictional world of dystopian novel Dead Headz, or our actual world?

What a mess this world is becoming. And I’m talking about the real world, not the First World that features in my World of The Powers dystopian novel series. That’s already a mess when we join Kent Sanderson and friends the day before they are forced by a drone-led government to leave their homes and enjoy themselves on Flying Ant Day (it doesn’t go well, by the way).

This real world I’m increasingly bored of living in is being ruined by tech bods who are being allowed to pretty much do what they like and blame things that go wrong – like recent hacking incidents - on AI. Their AI. The AI they are stealing books and art to train. AI that could, they admit themselves, destroy mankind.

I don’t think these techies live in the same world as most of the rest of us. Most of them look like they never venture outside (that would be too far away from their beloved screens). Have they ever been in a pub, a restaurant, a park, and seen there is a world away from this fake, robotic, encoded existence they spend so long in?

In Dead Headz, the sequel to Flying Ant Day, Kent’s techie friend Mac acts awkwardly and weirdly throughout the story. Yes, most of that is down to the big twist in the tale that I can’t reveal here. But it’s also down to the discomfort he feels and expresses about being forced to automate, automate, automate everything by his Powers party paymasters.

He hints at the fact that the technology the government is forcing him to use is growing unchecked, getting out of hand, perhaps even making decisions of its own that the youth-led Powers party are powerless to detect, let alone stop. The government is sold on the tech because it’s saving them so much money – mainly by putting people out of work.

For me, as a writer/copywriter who’s lost a big chunk of his income thanks to the prevalence of slop generating machines built on the theft of my writing (among millions of others’), Utopia is increasingly looking like a world without AI.

Bring it on, I say.

There are already and will certainly be many more novels focusing on the turmoil and terror unchecked tech will unleash on the world as there are so many angles from which to come at the scourge. Take your pick, readers, and do your bit to ensure that us genuine humans and not the techies who would surrender everything to bots, hold sway on this little old planet of ours.