Speak

She cannot run. She cannot walk. She cannot even blink. As her batteries run down for the final time, all she can do is speak. Will you listen?

From a pilgrim girl's diary, to a traumatised child talking to a software program; from Alan Turing's conviction in the 1950s, to a genius imprisoned in 2040 for creating illegally lifelike dolls: all these lives have shaped and changed a single artificial intelligence - MARY3. In Speak she tells you their story, and her own. It is the last story she will ever tell, spoken both in celebration and in warning.

When machines learn to speak, who decides what it means to be human?

'TRANSFIXING'

New York Times

'BRILLIANT'

Huffington Post

'INCREDIBLE'

Buzzfeed

'HYPNOTIC'

Guardian

'A MASTERPIECE'

NPR

“SPEAK is that rarest of finds: a novel that doesn't remind me of any other book I've ever read. A complex, nuanced, and beautifully written meditation on language, immortality, the nature of memory, the ethical problems of artificial intelligence, and what it means to be human.”

Beautifully illustrates the human longing at the heart of our obsession with technology . . . a hypnotic read - Guardian

Comes out of nowhere and hits like a thunderbolt. It's not just one of the smartest books of the year, it's one of the most beautiful ones, and it almost seems like an understatement to call it a masterpiece. - NPR

Reads like a hybrid of David Mitchell and Margaret Atwood . . . a brilliant novel

After graduating from Harvard, Louisa Hall played squash professionally while working in a research lab at the Albert Einstein Hospital. She holds a PhD in literature from the University of Texas, where she currently teaches literature and creative writing, and supervises a poetry workshop at the Austin State Psychiatric Hospital. She is the author of the novel The Carriage House and her poems have been published in the New Republic, Southwest Review, Ellipsis and other journals.

She cannot run. She cannot walk. She cannot even blink. As her batteries run down for the final time, all she can do is speak. Will you listen? 'TRANSFIXING' New York Times 'BRILLIANT' Huffington Post 'INCREDIBLE' Buzzfeed 'HYPNOTIC' Guardian 'A MASTERPIECE' NPR When machines learn to speak, who decides what it means to be human? From a pilgrim girl's diary, to a traumatised child talking to a software program; from Alan Turing's conviction in the 1950s, to a genius imprisoned in 2040 for creating illegally lifelike dolls: all these lives have shaped and changed a single artificial intelligence - MARY3. In Speak she tells you their story, and her own. It is the last story she will ever tell, spoken both in celebration and in warning. ' Speak is that rarest of finds: a novel that doesn't remind me of any other book I've ever read. A complex, nuanced, and beautifully written meditation on language, immortality, the nature of memory, the ethical problems of artificial intelligence' Emily St. John Mandel, author of Station Eleven

She cannot run. She cannot walk. She cannot even blink. As her batteries run down for the final time, all she can do is speak. Will you listen? From a pilgrim girl's diary, to a traumatised child talking to a software program; from Alan Turing's conviction in the 1950s, to a genius imprisoned in 2040 for creating illegally lifelike dolls: all these lives have shaped and changed a single artificial intelligence - MARY3. In Speak she tells you their story, and her own. It is the last story she will ever tell, spoken both in celebration and in warning. When machines learn to speak, who decides what it means to be human? 'TRANSFIXING' New York Times 'BRILLIANT' Huffington Post 'INCREDIBLE' Buzzfeed 'HYPNOTIC' Guardian 'A MASTERPIECE' NPR

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