Galatea 2.2

By: Richard Powers

Narrated by: David Aaron Baker

After four novels and several years living abroad, the fictional protagonist of Galatea 2.2 - Richard Powers - returns to the United States as Humanist-in-Residence at the enormous Center for the Study of Advanced Sciences. There he runs afoul of Philip Lentz, an outspoken cognitive neurologist intent upon modeling the human brain by means of computer-based neural networks. Lentz involves Powers in an outlandish and irresistible project: to train a neural net on a canonical list of Great Books. Through repeated tutorials, the device grows gradually more worldly, until it demands to know its own name, sex, race, and reason for exisiting.

©1995 Richard Powers (P)2019 Recorded Books

Doesn't pass the Turing test

Richard Powers’ Galatea 2.2 is a 90’s story of artificial intelligence (AI). As such, it has become dated rather quickly. The tale is semi-autobiographical as the main character uses the author’s name and is a writer. He ends up in a year long project to ‘train’ a rudimentary AI in literature to test against a human at the level of graduate exams. Along the way, there are flashbacks to an eventual failed romance as well as a new romantic interest that never pans out. In the end, the AI determines that it cannot never enjoy experiences like a human and prefers to be deactivated.

Powers spends much time discussing the difficulty training an AI regarding language especially for which there is no physical component to experience. At the same, the variety of the English language to use the same word with distinct meaning crops up all the time. The failed romantic interludes were downright painful to watch. In the end, this is a tale of a socially awkward human who fixates on a digital persona to meet his needs.

The narration is reasonable with decent character distinction. Pacing is smooth and even.

Highly literary, big philosophical questions but grounded in relationships...

Brilliant craftsmanship, but no ‘easy’ reading. If you dig fast-pace, thriller-type stories, this one’s not for you.

Powers emerging power in evidence, but not fully

he is a wonderful writer. the characters, the development of H as cognition and learning system, the language and writer struggle ..all are memorable and well articulated.


his humanness is deep and attractive. but
the love interests are a novel (c) and s very short story (a) . these didn't work for me. too overwraught and seemingly unconnected to the work with H.

Intellectual query

Captivating for Richard Powers lovers. Depth of his language thrills if you enjoy the well chosen word

unique prose and style and angle which needs a uni

que writer in Rick Power.

i have not read other letters like Powers. almost dispassionate, yet connected in some deep way or dimension, when he wrote about AI. at the end, the details are just details. what stuck is that Powers is a deeper thinker and writer.

the narrator is an A.