Playground

In his novel Playground, Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers tackles two of the most pressing issues of our time: climate change and artificial intelligence. Todd Keane—an AI pioneer who founded Playground, an app that’s a cross between Facebook and Reddit—is suffering from Lewy body dementia and is in the process of trying to record all of his memories and accomplish the items on his bucket list. One of his idols is the legendary scuba diver and scientist Evelyne Beaulieu, who explores the ocean while her husband takes care of their children onshore. Keane and Beaulieu’s lives intersect on the French Polynesian island of Makatea, where Beaulieu is conducting new research on an ocean ravaged by climate change while Keane and American investors are trying to transform the island into the floating utopia of their dreams. With AI innovations threatening to destroy traditional ways of life, the novel asks readers to think about how technology can render human lives as disposable as toys discarded on a playground.

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