Today I finished reading the book Avogadro Corp: The Singularity Is Closer Than It Appears by William Hertling. This is the first book in a series of 4 books, but they are not connected by plot.
In my opinion, the writing style is about a 4 out of 5, but the plot is enticing. It starts with the company Avogadro (which, by description, is 100% similar to Google) developing a project in the email module. The main goal of the project is to help write grammatically correct texts and, based on the analysis of previous communications, suggest formulations to optimize the desired outcome (for example, to convince someone of the need to allocate a budget). The neural network works decently but consumes an enormous amount of resources, putting the email service at risk—it’s periodically on the verge of crashing. The team has been trying to optimize the code for six months but hasn’t made much progress. The admin team issues an ultimatum: either they improve performance or the project will be removed from the servers in two weeks. For those two weeks, they unsuccessfully struggle with performance. On the last day of the ultimatum, the main manager realizes the desperation of his situation, his project, and his career, and decides to make an unusual move: he rewrites the module so that it not only suggests formulations but also slightly corrects any communication occurring within the company where the project name is mentioned, so that the email promotes the success of the project. The next morning, the hero reads an email from someone who promised to shut down the project in two weeks, stating, “Congratulations, you have been allocated 5000 servers, spare no expense.” Suddenly, everyone starts supporting the project, while those who resist for some reason begin to encounter various problems.
