Design

With the aid of artificial intelligences, which permeated the worlds of the Jack Mack stories, design and its implementation could be carried out somewhat more quickly than today. Thus new vehicles, space craft, etc. could have a fairly rapid turnover in production. The primary brake on this would be the time spent on the transporting of new designs to other worlds for use or production. Basically, stuff could be built quickly! I’ve certainly hinted at this by mentioning various craft used by my characters but it is not something to be dwelt on at length.

AI

My Jack Mack novels focused on AI and its use from the start (2021), and how my characters' lives fitted around the ubiquitous machine intelligences and robots. It's frightening to watch 'real life' catching up with and maybe surpassing what I was able to imagine.

I think the questions raised are as valid now as in my fictional future universe. Most importantly, can the line between man and machine ever be erased? As incredibly capable as the AIs in my books may be, they remain something other than human.

As for the combining of man and machine, that is a subject I have (wisely, I think) avoided, except for the sort of neural linkage that is required to pilot a jump ship. And that is not permanent. I just might introduce some mention of a pretty much universal condemnation of the concept (as did Herbert in 'Dune'). That, of course, would allow someone to break the rule and open up new plot directions.

Robots

Inevitably, any science fiction writer who tackles the subject of robots is going to be influenced by Isaac Asimov. I have both respected that fact and attempted to distance myself from his creations in my Jack Mack novels.

No robot of Jack’s worlds has the sort of mental capacity displayed by Asimov’s more advanced versions. This is not to say there are not exceedingly powerful artificial intelligences but they can not be housed in a human-sized machine. Rather, the most capable are often spread out over a network, be it in a space ship or a building. They are also likely to be interconnected with a number of other intelligences of varying capabilities.

It is necessary for sophisticated AI’s to have an identity. Without a sense of who they are, they tend to break down ‘mentally.’ Thus, most reasonably advanced robots are gendered. Top-tier intelligences also tend to bond with a particular human and take on some of their personality traits. Once those are embedded in their psyche (so to speak), they will remain with them after the human has gone. Steward, aka Stewie, who runs things at Summit Up, carries over the personality imprint of Jack’s great-grandfather, with all his fussiness and a bit of a snobbish attitude.

Whether an AI can actually be snobbish is another question. Perhaps Stewie simply imitates the deceased Barry McFee. No one can say, including the AI himself.

Robots are fairly ubiquitous on Jack McFee’s home planet of Scotia. They do not quite constitute a ‘peasantry’ as on some worlds, such as Resnovae, but they do a good bit of the menial work. On other planets, there is less reliance on robots and AI, but they are found pretty much everywhere man has gone. This is one reason people emigrate to the ‘new worlds’ from those like Scotia that have been long settled; there is a dearth of meaningful work for them as machines take over more chores.

Hands-on work, that is, which humans do need. Sitting to manage a fleet of robots is unlikely to be fulfilling. It is to be noted that security still has a strong human component to it. AIs are notoriously bad at replacing police and military, prone to blunders and misunderstandings.

I have chosen not to make robots and artificial intelligence central to any of my stories of Jack McFee, but they are very much a part of the world-building. They also raise questions on the whole concept of consciousness; that is also something I have touched upon from time to time. But, of course, I can’t actually answer those questions. I can only pose them and provide some thoughts.