In 2048, politics and old-fashioned ambition yield to neural network computer technology in this speculative / hard sci-fi thriller. THE MEDIA REPUBLIC describes a society surprisingly similar to its twentieth-century ancestor, despite all the differences like game-show elections, mergers between the political parties and the media networks, and robotically-enforced electoral rules. Dueweke, a Silicon Valley research physicist and author of four other novels and several award-winning short stories, integrates realistic computer and robotic technology into a continually twisting and evolving plot.
It’s election year 2048. Campaigns and politicians are not like they used to be. Baseball sluggers and porn queens on game shows — that's the new American politics. TV networks have merged with political parties to run "quality" candidates. A new Government superagency, Committee for Political Equality, COPE, is making sure everybody plays by the rules, and using state-of-the-art computer and robotic technology to enforce those rules. They call it a disciplined democracy. But computer evolution has outstripped society’s literacy, and has even bypassed COPE itself. A Nobel physicist discovers a whole level of technology-driven fraud that even the media party moguls don’t suspect, and he ends up on a computer's hit list. Adapting his own technology, he defeats robotic assassins sent to protect the electorate from such “anarchists” as him. But the ultimate question he confronts is — does anyone care?
THE MEDIA REPUBLIC is a thriller from beginning to end, yet makes the reader think about political and social evolutionary issues that only a visionary with his finger on the artery of technology could foresee.
Excerpt
The Asp studied a cloud of smoke as he listened to Jenner. "I tried to read each of his monthly reports," he said. "He referred to ‘evolution' of the coprocessor control system which I believe is resident in the main computer. I never knew exactly what he meant by that."
"What he was getting at," Jenner said, "is that the main computer is what tells the neural network what to do and how to do it. The main computer can't do the complex processing that the coprocessor does, but it does tell the coprocessor how many levels to use, where to distribute the signals, and exactly what weighting factor to use for each of the trillions of neural connections. There's no question that the main computer is the real brain behind the brain."
"What would happen if we simply shut down the coprocessor neural net?"
"That would make a real change in the computer's mental state. It's highest level functions are shared somehow with the neural net processing, but it's more complicated than that. It's not like a part of the human brain because the brain is hardwired with the inter-neuron connections. In this case, the main computer is far more than just an input/output device. It effectively tells the coprocessor what to think and, to a large extent, how to think it. Somehow the emotions it has developed are shared between the two parts of this thing. I really don't understand the interaction very well."
"But it's probably safe to say," the Asp said, leaning back and speaking to a swirl of walnut., "that shutting down the coprocessor would have an effect on COPE operations."
"I think it would be dramatic, Sir. All of the computer's operations have become totally integrated with that coprocessor. And it's more than just dependence. It's like … like some kind of relationship."
The Asp looked directly at Jenner while he silently recharged his pipe. "This is almost too much for an old timer like me to even think about. I thought I was pretty flexible in my thinking until about a half hour ago. But this …" He shook his head as he replaced the gold lighter on the table.
"It's pretty hard for me to grasp, too. But I'm forced to accept it."
"Okay, Jenner, get on with your recommendation."
"We discovered the part of each suram that was locked out of the intra-suram mutation sequences. It turned out to be a simple set of instructions with read and write statements."
The Asp pointed the stem of his pipe at Jenner as he leaned forward. "A back door," he said. "Planck left himself a back door."
"That's exactly right," Jenner said. "He figured that he might have to find all those mutant codes some day, and maybe modify them for some reason, so he gave himself access to them, no matter where they went or how the code structure around them had changed. It's like a receptor molecule on a protein."
"Yes," said the Asp. "But maybe even more than that since it contains built-in input and output ports. In cell biology, I believe one of the biggest challenges is to figure out how to get the modified genes into the nuclear DNA. Planck made that easy."
"Correction, Sir. Easier. I don't think Dr. Planck appreciated just how far afield these little critters were going to get."
"What do you mean?"
"Remember I said the computer falsified all those purchase orders for networks and buffers? Well, I traced some of its excursions over a few of its satellite nets. It either knows about the back door or is just playing it very safe because I found critical packages of code all over the place, and not just at COPE facilities."
"What kind of places?"
"For example, the World Bank in Sao Palo, TRW in Jakarta, GE in Dublin, Mitsubishi in Baghdad, Cairo University …"
"And what is the function of these disbursed files?"
"Well, I'm not sure."
"Spare parts?"
"Yes," she said quickly.
"An army is only as good as its inventory of replacement parts."
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