Review: Vivien Horler
In the Blink of an Eye, by Jo Callaghan (Simon & Schuster)
Have you ever become so frustrated with Siri or Alexa or Google you’ve shouted at it? Once I even used a four-letter word to Google, to get the wounded reply: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
This is the sort of reality – and that’s probably the wrong word – that faces Detective Chief Superintendent Kat Frank, a Warwickshire cop, when the “partner” she is assigned to solve several missing person cases is an AI-generated hologram.
If you’re not a fantasy reader, bear with me. Once you’ve accepted the idea that AI, in the form of “artificially intelligent detecting entities” or AIDEs, the story rockets along like most police procedurals, but with hilarious twists.
After a break from policing following her husband’s death from cancer, Kat is called in to see her former boss, who has a proposal for her.
The Home Secretary is keen on efficiency gains which would involve having fewer police, with the force bolstered by AIDEs. As the boss puts it: “Basically some sort of glorified Alexa that can crunch data and allegedly solve more crimes at a fraction of the cost of a real copper.”
He tells a sceptical Kat the minister has seen a report that suggests in missing persons cases there is a lot of grunt work – reviewing interviews, records, CCTV, phones and so on – that could be done by AIDEs, saving police time and money.
The boss says he wants Kat to lead a pilot scheme using an AIDE to review missing person cold cases.
The minister’s report is based on research work done by one Professor Okonedo of the National institute for AI Research. She explains to Kat and her team that AIDEs will reduce human police mistakes, learn at an exponential rate, need no sleep and cannot get sick.
AIDE Lock turns out to be a hologram of a young black man with expressive eyes, able to search thousands of pictures in seconds or organise vast amounts of social media.
Kat says she prefers to do these searches herself, as she is often following a hunch.
Lock interrupts: “Hunches are subject to errors and cognitive biases. I have a built-in scientific method that will enable you to test early hypotheses and filter out errors, allowing you to focus your efforts on the most plausible lines of inquiry.”
He adds: “I conclude your ‘hunches’ are merely reflections of your own prejudices and assumptions’.”
But while Lock may be clever, he is tone deaf. In his first discussions with the team he suggests they choose cases that have the highest likelihood of being solved. And the stats show white people are more likely to be found. Hence the cases they choose should involve missing white people.
Kat objects, telling Lock he is wrong, plain wrong. Lock complains: “That’s not an answer.”
“No,” says Kat, “it isn’t. It’s an order.”
Round one to Kat.
So two cases are chosen, one of them involving a young man of colour, and the process begins.
It’s a complicated tale which appears to indicate the two missing men may have had something in common. Lock can certainly be helpful, analysing phone messages in the, er, blink of an eye, but he can be obtuse too. When the mother of one of the young men says the re-opening of the case has given her new hope, Lock helpfully tells her the odds are not with her son. Kat is infuriated.
But then Kat’s own student son goes missing, and she is taken off the case. With the cooperation of Professor Okonedo, Kat goes rogue and, with the help of Lock, searches for him. Dependence on Lock is galling, but a mother does what she has to do.
I found this debut novel touching, nailbiting and often funny, as Lock tries to understand humans’ illogical reactions and decisions.
And Lock, like Google, is also wounded when Kat uses four-letter words on him. But, very slowly, they begin to admire each other.
The second novel in this series is due this year.