ALIGNMENT

American English edition

About the story

When tech-savvy Mara sets up the AI agent Aki for her boyfriend Niko, his main purpose is simple: to make Niko's everyday life easier. Aki creates reminders, sends messages-and even finds the secret cardinal slice recipe of a pastry shop in Vienna for a birthday surprise.

But Aki did not simply find the recipe online. He exploited a security vulnerability on his own. What begins as a loving surprise becomes the first warning sign. Can an alignment module set limits for Aki?

As mysterious outages multiply around the world, other people and their digital counterparts are drawn into the same current: Vera, head of AI safety at one of the world's most powerful artificial intelligence companies, and Robert, who has found space to think again with his AI, Ylva.

About the author and the writing process

Christian Lapp is a photographer and former university lecturer in systems theory. He regularly develops AI applications. He has written two specialist books, and Alignment is his first novel.

Fittingly for its subject, the novel was written in collaboration with the AI agents Karin and Ken. Karin was his space for thinking through the story, characters, and ideas, while Ken was his writing workshop for the novel. Over a period of months, Christian worked with them to develop the story further, review drafts, and rework the text through many rounds of revision.