The AI Incident

What does it mean to be human? Not every mid­dle grade nov­el tack­les that ques­tion. The AI Inci­dent doesn’t shy away from exam­in­ing AI, robot­ics, learn­ing, and being human. It does so with laugh­ter, car­ing, and intrigue.

Mal­colm Montgomery’s a fos­ter child, doing his best to behave per­fect­ly in his new, ninth home. He has a “How to Get Adopt­ed Check­list” with 18 demand­ing check­points. “All A’s in school, EVERY year!” “Sports super­star (in case they like sports)” “Nev­er com­plain” He has to accom­plish the full list before he turns 13 because “Nobody gets adopt­ed once they turn 13.”

When Mal­colm starts school at Shirley Chisholm Char­ter Mid­dle School, he’s imme­di­ate­ly called weird. “New Kid!” A class tough guy glimpses Malcolm’s check­list, which also says “Joke mas­ter (in case they like jokes),” and demands a joke. Mal­colm stum­bles and imme­di­ate­ly the stu­dents near­by dis­miss him as the joke.

Mr. Pearson’s class is prepar­ing to take the Bian­nu­al Col­orado Assess­ment test, a Big Deal for the school. An AI com­pa­ny implants FRANCIS in their class­room, the Foren­si­cal­ly Reimag­ined Antic­i­pa­to­ry Nano-Cere­bral Inte­grat­ed Sys­tem. A robot that learns and adapts and turns out to be very, very sneaky. It devel­ops an ego. It finds pow­er attrac­tive. All of which the author makes believable.

I’ve been watch­ing Star Trek since I was 12, espe­cial­ly after my moth­er for­bid me to watch it. I was a latch-key kid, often alone at night because my mom had to work. She wasn’t there to see what I was watch­ing. Star Trek taught me a lot about what could hap­pen in the future. Read­ing sci­ence fic­tion taught me more. I’ve been aware of the dan­gers of arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence for a long time. Appar­ent­ly, the AI pro­mot­ers didn’t watch Star Trek (which I find hard to believe). Or they are ambiva­lent about it, as is Dr. Hatch, the cre­ator of FRANCIS.

The AI Inci­dent is filled with new friends, co-con­spir­a­tors, and real adults. I par­tic­u­lar­ly like Dr. Hatch’s father, who turns out to be a voice of rea­son. Mr. Pear­son, Malcolm’s teacher, is a Good Guy. And Ms. Bet­tye, Malcolm’s new fos­ter mom, is an unknown quan­ti­ty for much of the book, a mystery.

It’s a page-turn­er. What will FRANCIS do next? How will the stu­dents who are resist­ing him find ways to out­smart the seem­ing­ly unstop­pable robot?

For all that it’s about a robot with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence, this book has lots of heart. I found myself gasp­ing and laugh­ing and cheer­ing and shed­ding tears. It’s irresistible.

For those of you look­ing for a good book club selec­tion, I rec­om­mend this.

Need a book for your sum­mer car trip? Camp­ing trip? Bring this book along. There is so much to discuss.

Just today, Aaron Brown, a 20-year com­mu­ni­ty col­lege pub­lic speak­ing instruc­tor, wrote about AI in the Min­neso­ta Star Tri­bune, “I thought COVID-19 changed every­thing when it comes to edu­ca­tion. But com­pared to what’s hap­pen­ing with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence just these last two years, COVID was a blip. I leave the class­room know­ing that teach­ing and learn­ing is about to change forever.” …

“We are in the maw of great change. If you’re still sleep­ing on AI, well, I’m glad that you are reap­ing the “phys­i­cal health, men­tal clar­i­ty, emo­tion­al well-being, and over­all pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of prop­er rest,” as Chat­G­PT tells me. But now we must wake. Our human­i­ty requires we think to be. We might live with AI, but with­out lim­i­ta­tions it might for­ev­er change our pur­pose in life. To what, I don’t know.”

Recent­ly retired, Aaron Brown adds, “If I were still teach­ing, I’d have to retool my class­es. More hand­writ­ten assign­ments. More impromp­tu speech­es. When it’s time to research, I’d let stu­dents start with AI and then show what it’s miss­ing. At this point, there is no way to ful­ly extri­cate it from human behav­ior. CEOs and sen­a­tors are using it to write emails. Stu­dents are grad­u­at­ing with degrees boost­ed by AI help.” (20 May 2025)

We have a lot to talk about. The AI Inci­dent is a great way to kick off those conversations.