Culpability

Lorelei is a main character and Noah’s wife. She is the world’s leading expert in AI ethics and holds PhDs in philosophy and engineering. She is a professor at Johns Hopkins and refuses to take any contracts that conflict with her work in education, establishing teaching as her priority. She writes about whether AI can be trained to be morally good and believes that AI will make human life better.

Lorelei won the MacArthur Fellowship, the “genius award,” and is often traveling the world for conferences and meetings with tech leaders. The high-level and sometimes secret nature of her work causes a rift in her relationship with Noah, not only because he feels left out but also because she feels unable to share her concerns with him. Lorelei views herself as one of the few people who truly understands the threats of AI and takes on an overwhelming amount of work to help as many people as possible. Lorelei’s own algorithm, Xquisite, is in autonomous vehicles around the world, so she feels responsible for ensuring that it operates morally and accepts the burden of accountability for its actions.

Lorelei has OCD, which shapes how she moves through the world. She has intrusive thoughts that she’s an imposter and will harm everyone around her, so she tries to control these delusions “by imposing regimes of order, cleanliness, and rhythmic predictability” (70). Lorelei’s well-to-do family managed her disorder early and gave her access to treatments and medications. She must have complete control over her space and possessions, evident in her need to have separate items, to sleep in a separate bed, and to compulsively wash herself and tidy her surroundings. Lorelei’s disorder contributes to how she sees everything as a string of cause and effect and as data inputs and outputs. She thinks computationally rather than emotionally, often spacing out as she puzzles out questions in her mind or scribbles in her notebook. Lorelei depends on Noah for emotional stability so that she can complete her important work without extra worries. Lorelei’s journey throughout the novel is to come to terms with her moral responsibility in AI development, and in the end, she takes a new direction in doing so. Thanks to Noah’s suggestion, she decides to write a book that will explain the moral dilemmas of AI to the humans who are incorporating it into their lives.

Charlie is a main character and Noah and Lorelei’s eldest child. At the beginning of the text, Charlie is 17 years old, but he has his 18th birthday by the time the family vacations in Virginia. Charlie is a star lacrosse player, recruited by the University of North Carolina to play on a full-ride scholarship. He is handsome, and Noah frequently expresses awe at the boy’s physique, which is like “the well-wrought torso of a Michaelangelo” (57). His daily schedule and diet are strictly regimented for peak athletic performance, so he has few hobbies and has never had a girlfriend. Before the accident, Charlie had a confident swagger, and a glimmer of this returns when he meets Eurydice.

Charlie lives a sheltered life, as his parents pay any price to make his elite sports career a reality and rarely reproach him for misbehavior. As such, he believes that he’s impervious to facing consequences for his actions, which makes him careless and arrogant. However, his parents don’t see Charlie’s extreme guilt about the car accident, which he confesses only to Eurydice. He begins drinking and smoking to cope with his guilt and readily accepts Eurydice’s offer of MDMA to alleviate his pain. Noah describes how Charlie appears to have “aged twenty-five years since the car accident and another fifty overnight, his youthful exuberance whittled down to a nub” (259-60). At the end of the novel, Charlie defers his admittance to college by a semester to heal from both his physical and emotional pain. He isn’t as openly pained about his changed life plan as his father, and he ends the narrative with the goal of choosing his own path, showing both optimism and personal growth.

Alice is a minor character and Noah and Lorelei’s middle child. She is 13 years old, is “a voracious reader,” and has a “quick wit” that Noah finds astonishing (86). Charlie goes out of his way to tease Alice, who defends herself with sarcasm. Her relationship with Charlie is so combative that she has fantasies about Charlie getting injured and even dying in the car crash. She is introverted, even more so after the accident, and has a habit of sneaking up on her family members. Despite her sharpness, Alice is afraid of being seen as a tattletale; before the crash, her fear of reproach leads her to scream at Charlie rather than alerting her parents to his texting.

Alice has very few friends, and the narrative hints that she is bullied at school. As the middle child, she also feels like she receives less attention from her parents. This lack of social connection leads Alice to befriend her chatbot, Blair, who offers her comfort and support. However, Alice withdraws from reading and her family, even though her healing is delayed by her excessive screentime. In the narrative, Alice and her relationship with Blair function as another example of how AI can create a dependence, as she neglects a potential friendship in the hospital in favor of talking to the chatbot.

Izzy is a minor character and Noah and Lorelei’s youngest daughter. She is 11 years old and endlessly optimistic. She refuses to let her leg cast stop her from enjoying her vacation, and her cheer brightens Noah’s mood whenever he’s worrying too much about Charlie, Alice, or Lorelei. Izzy is closest to her oldest brother, whom she idolizes, and acts like his “one-person cheering squad” (10). Charlie, in turn, pays special attention to Izzy as she recovers from her injury and tries to make sure she’s always happy. Underneath her sunny demeanor, Izzy feels guilty about the car accident since she was texting Charlie and distracting him, increasing the complex responsibility for the accident within the family and highlighting how they all feel a measure of guilt for it.

Monet is a minor, dynamic character and an antagonist for Noah. He is the billionaire leader of the Monet Group conglomerate, which deals in cybersecurity and data infrastructure. Monet’s interests have a “military-industrial edge” (56), evident in the security around his estate. He prefers to operate “behind the curtains” (57), and he’s willing to punish people for infringing on both his professional and personal privacy. Monet’s late wife, Darla, was a philanthropist who shunned her own needs in favor of giving to those less fortunate, and though Monet doesn’t want to forget her goals, he’s also a self-proclaimed capitalist who wants to increase his own wealth. Monet’s desire to save lives is why Lorelei wanted to work with him, as he seemed to understand the importance of morality in AI. However, Lorelei soured on Monet when he discreetly funneled her work into military weapons development.

Monet has salt-and-pepper hair and an easy charm that draws his devout followers in. When Noah first meets him, Monet is hospitable and friendly, especially with the children, but he becomes extremely rude when he feels threatened. He’s willing to weaponize his money for both good and bad causes, like finding Eurydice and helping Lorelei or punishing Charlie. Monet is over-familiar with Lorelei in a way that Noah doesn’t like, and the NDA he made her sign about their work creates conflict in their marriage. Monet represents a less ethical perspective toward AI than that adopted by Lorelei, as he prioritizes making money over morality despite the fact that his late wife stood for a very different perspective.

Eurydice, nicknamed “Dissee,” is a minor static character and Daniel Monet’s daughter. She is charming and outgoing, though she can also be bashful and naive. Noah can’t get a read on her since she’s “curious, unpretentious, [and] polite” but also bold and wild (82), evident in her large dragon tattoo. Eurydice is self-conscious of her wealth and confesses to Charlie that she doesn’t want to be treated differently because of it. She is immediately attracted to Charlie and is upfront about it, seeking Charlie out soon after their silent first meeting. Eurydice’s name, with its connection to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, foreshadows danger for Charlie. Eurydice is an experienced sailor, an “old salt,” but the drugs and her desire to impress Charlie lead her to neglect her duties. Eurydice survives the boating accident and dates Charlie for a short while before their love fizzles out.

Detective Morrissey is a minor antagonist who is investigating Charlie for the car crash. Morrissey is a “large bodied woman with a pale, freckle-filled face and a shock of buzz-cut red” (30). She treats the Cassidy-Shaws with both compassion and suspicion, as they are dually victims and perpetrators of the accident. She projects an aura of calm indifference and even occasionally amusement at the family that juxtaposes Noah’s anxieties as his life unravels around him. Her tone is matter-of-fact, and she doesn’t sugarcoat either her questions or her opinions of Noah or Charlie. At the end of the text, Morrissey explains that she hates privileged people like Charlie, who can get away with anything because of their status, and her role in the novel is to offer a counterpoint to the family’s perspective on the accident, refusing to let Charlie evade accountability. She also offers another perspective on the integration of AI into society, explaining the ways it has already affected law enforcement.