The Deepfake Book Review

Full disclosure: I was given a free advance reader copy of this book by Books Forward in exchange for an honest review.

Content warning: this review discusses sexual assault.

No one can escape artificial intelligence (AI). It has started to affect how we create and perceive content. Many books about AI are usually either nonfiction or speculative fiction because it’s still new. People want to understand and connect with it, but they don’t really know how. But, what if someone wrote a fictional story involving AI? After all, fiction helps readers connect with topics on an emotional level. Author Joan Cohen does just that with her new book The Deepfake.

The Deepfake is about a woman caught in between illegal activities conducted at her workplace. Sylvie thinks of herself as a team player at her AI company. However, when she discovers some shady business dealings, she’s torn on what to do. She confides in Rip, her personal trainer who’s not only appalled by the choices she faces, but also by her advocacy of AI. He believes that it’s dangerous. Despite their different viewpoints and the spurs they throw at each other, they’re drawn to one another. In addition, Sylvie’s life is made more difficult by the constant summons to her mother and stepfather’s Miami estate. Illness, death, a disputed will, and an old flame swirl into a disaster that follows Sylvie back to Boston, which threatens to harm her and the people she cares about.

I’m going to be very honest. I’m not a fan of AI. I get that it allows people to be more creative with their content in a quicker amount of time as well as aid them in times of need. For example, Vasya Baev’s illustrations in Lily’s Wondrous World: A Day in the Park by Marc Polett had some help from AI, and it looks good. It’s that I’ve seen way too many instances of bad AI art and people taking advantage of it. To this day, I can’t look at digital art without checking to see if the person in it has 6 fingers or not nor a news story that has AI assistance.

I carried this opinion while reading The Deepfake, yet I still maintained an open mind about AI. Sylvie, our main character, is a cheerleader for the technology, but she doesn’t know what it’s fully capable of. She hears different opinions of it from people like Warren – the IT guy – and Rip – her personal trainer whose father was a rabbi. The latter expresses concern about AI because he feels that it could take over the world like a fictional robot. Rip serves as the mouthpiece for many of the negative effects of AI, but readers understand where he’s coming from since he has his own relationship with the company Sylvie works for. Luckily, the book does show that AI can be good. Towards the end, after an incident that lands Sylvie in the hospital and months of recuperating, she conducts research on how AI could be useful while understanding its ethics. This could’ve been incorporated more into the story, but I appreciate how Cohen chose to display both the pros and cons of utilizing AI.

I also liked Sylvie very much. There were times where I wanted to yell at her to live her own life, yet I would’ve done similar things in her situation because I’m like her to a degree. She’s very witty, especially when she’s sparring with Rip about her life and AI. In addition, I know all too well about Sylvie’s dilemma of trying to please everyone. She got into a technology company to prove to her ex-husband that she can stand on her own. At that organization, she tries to help both sides with finding information regarding illegal activity involving a new AI software. This exhausts her to the point that she has to set boundaries with certain co-workers. Unfortunately, one of them creates the titular item utilizing her likeness and voice approving of the product. Although she is forced out of the company under unfortunate circumstances, I’m glad that in the end, she’s able to forge her own destiny.

What also puts Sylvie’s stress on a high level is her stepbrother Carlos. This entire subplot was the most gripping, especially how it played into the whole story. She had a fling with Carlos in the past, but when she and her friend Eileen fly to Miami to visit her mom and stepdad, he rapes her. This is not the first time that I read a book involving the protagonist getting sexually assaulted by their stepbrother, yet this was well handled. Cohen portrays this assault and the consequences thoughtfully and with great sensitivity. At first, Sylvie blames herself for it because she and Eileen were tipsy and out at various night clubs with him and her other and nicer stepbrother Miguel. I would’ve yelled at her for that, but other characters like Eileen, Miguel, and stepfather Luis made her see the light. Luis even recalls how Carlos got a girl pregnant when he was a teenager in Cuba. All of this has ramifications as he stalks her in Boston and snakes his way into the AI industry.  While people speculate that his mother preferred Miguel when they were children, it’s clear that Cohen wanted to show how far sexual predators are willing to go to get what they want. This is even to the point that Carlos does the following: run over Rip’s dog at the park, stab Sylvie in the back while at her home in Boston, and attempt to murder Miguel at his wedding to Eileen in Miami. 

The Deepfake by Joan Cohen is a fascinating look at how AI affects one worker and her family. It taught me that AI can be used for both good and for evil. Moreover, it shows the importance of knowing exactly what AI and other new technology are capable of and not being a blind follower. Above all, it has an interesting main character, whose overall dilemma is about drawing the line between pleasing others and making their own choices. It helps that her family could easily be in a soap opera. I would recommend this book to those who want to know more about AI and who love stories about people discovering themselves. The book is out now, so go check it out wherever you get your novels.

Before I go, I want to let you know that I had the opportunity to interview Joan Cohen for the website. The transcript has been posted here.

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