THE BABEL APOCALYPSE AUDIOBOOK
by Vyvyan Evans
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GENRE: Science Fiction
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BLURB:
Language is no longer learned, but streamed to neural implants regulated by lang-laws. Those who can’t afford monthly language streaming services are feral, living on the fringes of society. Big tech corporations control language, the world’s most valuable commodity.
But when a massive cyberattack causes a global language outage, catastrophe looms.
Europol detective Emyr Morgan is assigned to the case. Suspect number one is Professor Ebba Black, the last native speaker of language in the automated world, and leader of the Babel cyberterrorist organization. But Emyr soon learns that in a world of corporate power, where those who control language control everything, all is not as it seems. After all, if the mysterious Ebba Black is to blame, why is the Russian Federation being framed for an outage it claims no responsibility for? And why is Ebba now a target for assassination?
As he and Ebba collide, Emyr faces an existential dilemma between loyalty and betrayal, when everything he once believed in is called into question. To prevent the imminent collapse of civilization and a deadly war between the great federations, he must figure out friend from foe—his life depends on it.
And with the odds stacked against him, he must find a way to stop the Babel Apocalypse.
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Excerpt
As I was about to glance back at the voices, a light flickered in my peripheral vision, drawing my gaze upward to the night sky. A soft white glow, high up in the dark. At first it was indistinguishable from the airway lights. But it persisted, the size of a small disk at first, before shifting to red-orange, getting larger. At that point I realized it definitely couldn’t be a hover car. This was farther up, probably low Earth orbit, which explained the initial white. But the shift in coloration—that meant a detonation, producing nitrogen dioxide, which turned deep orange when mixed with air. A gaseous cloud has reached the atmosphere, I thought. I was witnessing a chemical explosion in space large enough to be visible to the naked eye. But what was exploding?
As I continued looking up, the orange grew in intensity until it flared across the skyline, illuminating the entire landscape around me with an eerie red-orange. It was only then that I became aware of the newly hushed silence of the drunken revelers nearby. And the silhouettes of other people too, who had also stopped and peppered the pedestrian corridor. We were all now strange red creatures, watching transfixed in rapt silence as the night sky was on fire. And just as suddenly as it had appeared, it was gone; the orange light faded back into a deep well of pitch black.
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Guest post by Vyvyan Evans, February 29 2024, at Readers Roost
The context against which The Babel Apocalypse is set is the World’s Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR.
We currently stand on the brink of a new technological revolution, involving connectivity, smart AI and the Internet of Things. This will lead to a transformation in scale and complexity that humans have not witnessed previously. We don’t yet know how things will play out, but we can make some pretty educated guesses—which is the point of the novel, especially in terms of the future of language and communication.
First, the novel takes the advent of implantable neuroprosthetic technology, and imagines the very real possibility that within the next 100 years, the hallmark of what it is to be human—language—an ability that our species alone possesses, will be replaced by AI. Such a development would call into question what it means to be human.
Second, The Babel Apocalypse explores the consequences of humans “giving up” on language, offloading language learning, allowing AI to take over. The consequence of this, according to the novel, is that language will become a commodity (like any other, such as movies, music, and so on, that we currently stream on demand, for a fee), controlled for and by big tech, in service of shareholders and corporate interests.
The novel then predicts that this leads to a slippery slope of issues ranging from potential censorship, control of thought, and even, through cyberterrorism, the prospect of an existential crisis for the human race. This is manifested in several ways in the book, notably a global language outage, which prevents large numbers of people from being able to communicate.
Hence, these two concerns, that underpin the book, call into question what it means to be human, whether AI can and should be allowed to replace previously fundamental aspects of the human experience, and points to potential abuses of what we previously assumed to be a human birth-right.
As further context, it is worth pointing out that science fiction has a track record of successfully predicting aspects of the future. For instance, the work of Isaac Asimov, from 1940 onwards, successfully predicted some aspects of the rise of AI and its inherent dangers for humans, in terms of his Robot series of books and stories. William Gibson, in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, coined the term “cyberspace” and predicted some of the issues and dangers that would arise.
In 2015, a wide array of leading researchers, economists and even captains of industry, warned, in an Open Letter and accompanying report, against the new dangers of AI. This Open Letter was issued in response to new breakthroughs in AI that, without adequate control, might pose short and long-term existential threats to humans.
One response to the existential threat posed by AI for humans, and championed by Elon Musk (who incidentally was one of the signatories of the 2015 letter), has been, through his leadership of Neuralink, to develop neuroprosthetic technology that, ultimately, might allow the human brain to become hybridized with AI. The rationale is that by embracing AI, the new “transhuman” can stay one step ahead.
But this is the very research trajectory that leads to the potentially catastrophic prospect of language becoming a commodity, which is exactly what The Babel Apocalypse predicts.
AUTHOR Bio and Links:
Dr. Vyvyan Evans is a native of Chester, England. He holds a PhD in linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., and is a Professor of Linguistics. He has published numerous acclaimed popular science and technical books on language and linguistics. His popular science essays and articles have appeared in numerous venues including 'The Guardian', 'Psychology Today', 'New York Post', 'New Scientist', 'Newsweek' and 'The New Republic'. His award-winning writing focuses, in one way or another, on the nature of language and mind, the impact of technology on language, and the future of communication. His science fiction work explores the status of language and digital communication technology as potential weapons of mass destruction.
Book website (including ‘Buy’ links): http://www.songs-of-the-sage.com
Author website: https://www.vyvevans.net/
Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@vyvevans
Twitter: https://twitter.com/VyvEvans
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Vyvyan.Evans.Author
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nephilim_publishing/
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE
The author will award a copy of the audiobook to a randomly drawn winner.
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