{"id":47575,"date":"2025-09-12T01:33:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T08:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=47575"},"modified":"2025-09-11T08:52:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T15:52:34","slug":"thriller-delves-into-ai-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2025\/09\/12\/thriller-delves-into-ai-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Thriller delves into AI world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Kalla commands readers\u2019 interest from the first sentence of his latest thriller, The Deepest Fake<\/i>. And he keeps us turning pages straight to the end, not only as we contemplate who might be the culprit(s) of our hero\u2019s apparent demise, but also as we consider the ideas Kalla puts forward about artificial intelligence, intellectual property, relationships, trust, measures of a successful life, and more.<\/p>\n

Jewish Independent <\/i>readers will be familiar with Kalla, who, in addition to being a writer of many international bestselling novels, is an emergency room physician here in Vancouver. The JI<\/i> interviewed Kalla in 2023 and has reviewed of a few of his previous novels.<\/p>\n

\"image<\/a>The plot-driving topic of The Deepest Fake<\/i> \u2013 artificial intelligence \u2013 is new territory for the doctor-writer, who has penned many medical and science thrillers, using his physician\u2019s knowledge to powerful effect. But he also has written an historical fiction trilogy set in Shanghai during the Second World War, where thousands of Jews fleeing Europe found safe haven, even as China and Japan were at war, so we know Kalla\u2019s not afraid to do the research necessary to create a realistic-seeming fictional world centred around places and concepts less familiar to him, and to most readers.<\/p>\n

As much as The Deepest Fake<\/i> highlights some of the moral issues surrounding AI, it also explores other big issues, like medical assistance in dying (MAiD), fidelity in marriage and business partnerships, the foundations of trust, and where the creative process begins and who owns it. Kalla manages to cover all this ground and raise so many relevant questions while telling a great story. The Deepest Fake<\/i> begins with a bang \u2013 \u201cLiam Hirsch never seriously contemplated dying before his forty-ninth birthday \u2013 until today\u201d \u2013 and keeps up the pace throughout.<\/p>\n

Liam, founder and chief executive officer of a thriving AI company, TransScend, is suffering from a mysterious medical condition that\u2019s first diagnosed as an aggressive form of ASL (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). His symptoms \u2013 twitches and challenges with movement \u2013 have been getting worse, and he\u2019s likely to lose basic motor function within months, maybe a year.<\/p>\n

Despite the seriousness of his illness, Liam hesitates to tell his wife and kids, the former not only because of the pain it will cause, but because, weeks before, he discovered, with the help of a private investigator, that his wife was cheating on him. Adding to Liam\u2019s stresses and the book\u2019s adventure are some accounting irregularities at his company, the competitive nature of the tech world and the potentially manipulative AI app that he helped create. So, when it becomes obvious that someone wants Liam gone, the suspects are numerous, including his wife, all his staff, an aggrieved former business partner, and the technology itself.<\/p>\n

The Deepest Fake<\/i> is a fun, satisfying read.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daniel Kalla commands readers\u2019 interest from the first sentence of his latest thriller, The Deepest Fake. And he keeps us turning pages straight to the end, not only as we contemplate who might be the culprit(s) of our hero\u2019s apparent demise, but also as we consider the ideas Kalla puts forward about artificial intelligence, intellectual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[9093,8858,6133,22629,24336,7446],"class_list":["post-47575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-daniel-kalla","tag-fiction","tag-novels","tag-the-deepest-fake","tag-thrillers"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47575\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}