22 May The Enigma Beyond Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey Guest Post Artificial Intelligence #TechnoThriller #ActionAdventure #FictionalThriller #AI #artificialintelligence #MachineLearning #R-Group #BreakfieldBurkey #EnigmaSeries @1rburkey

FEATURED AUTHORS: CHARLES BREAKFIELD AND ROX BURKEY

It is a pleasure to feature Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey—the awarding-winning co-authors of The Enigma Series (Technothrillers – Fiction/ Thriller / Technology). I had the opportunity to speak with Rox Burkey at the 6th Annual PenCraft Book Awards Dinner and Ceremony for Literary Excellence held in Lake Charles, LA, where she received an award and discussed the new perceived threat to the world, artificial Intelligence (A.I.). The showdown between man and the computer system HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey is no longer science fiction. Humans are now grappling with the potential benefits and dangers of A.I. in its infancy.

The Enigma Beyond: -A Techno Thriller (Bool 11 in the The Enigma Series) is highlighted in this post. Released by ICABOD Press on January 7th, 2020 (386 pages), this novel explores the potential risks of A.I.

Below are highlights and the book trailer of The Enigma Beyond, author bios for Charles Breakfield and Rox Burkey, and their guest post entitled: Breakfield & Burkey comments on Artificial Intelligence and where we are heading.

HIGHLIGHTS: THE ENIGMA BEYOND

The Enigma Beyond: -A Techno Thriller

(The Enigma Series Book 11)

By Charles Breakfield & Rox Burkey

Narrator/VoiceActor: Derek Shoales

Blurb:

Automation of humanity’s demise – Artificial intelligence

Technologists make computers faster. Computers are ingesting all the data from around the world, good, bad, or indifferent.

These machines can think—big mistake.

Decision making wars between Artificially Intelligence supercomputers and humans recently kicked into overdrive. Algorithms deliver manufactured choices to individuals and organizations to growing number of personal devices to drive decisions. Continued seduction of mankind becomes eminent unless stopped by our champions.

R-Group, information experts, leverage their next generation youth to rise to the new threats of modern technology. These evolving specialists are poised to compete with complex adversaries run by greedy technological geniuses.

Training of new R-Group family members is real-time cyber assault events. Working with ICABOD, R-Group’s treasured supercomputer, is their best weapon for this battle.

MAG, the consortium of global technology predators, united to bring their insidious plans for technology domination to the world stage.

Everyone caught in the cyber crosshairs realize time’s up!

Technical oligopolies want to dictate their terms for control of political, , healthcare, finances, and orbiting defense systems.

Can the champions of the R-Group intercept the MAG group?

Who will win the AI wars?

What readers are saying –

“This latest book in the series is a wake-up call about AI and robots, giving you a feeling of being too close to home.?

“It is an edge of your seat, mind-blowing, realistic and far-reaching thriller that will leave you with nightmares.  These are the monsters one cannot see, but they are there, nonetheless.”

“Another great adventure towards the end of the series. There is always something to learn.”

Book Buy Links:

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AUDIOBOOK: THE ENIGMA BEYOND

Audiobook Buy Links:

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BOOK TRAILER: THE ENIGMA BEYOND

OVERVIEW: THE ENIGMA SERIES

R-Group is a group of cyber heroes supporting their clients, businesses, and governments from tyranny by the bad actors of the Darknet. They use their technological, financial, and dedicated resources to find the sources of evil exploits and expose them to the authorities.

The Box Set edition for Books 1-3 of the Enigma Series includes The Enigma Factor, The Enigma Rising, and The Enigma Ignite. The first-generation R-Group began in 1939 in Poland when three patriots tried to hit back at the German invaders by taking their encryption device and learning its secrets. The three men risked their lives to help make a difference in humanity. Their moral principles were handed down through the generations. These guidelines are instilled in their modern-day support as the cyber good guys beat back the cyber criminals oozing all over the Darknet. Each tale uses today’s contemporary issues, such as identity theft, stealing satellite communications, or capitalizing on battlefield communications.

Though each story is a stand-alone, characters continue to grow and evolve throughout the entire series. The technology used in these fictional thrillers is accurate. Who will win and keep the scales tipped in favor of humankind is at the heart of the thrillers.

Buy Links to The Enigma Series

Books in Series Available on Kindle Unlimited?

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BREAKFIELD AND BURKEY SHORT STORIES

AUTHOR BIOS: CHARLES BREAKFIELD AND ROX BURKEY

BREAKFIELD – Charles works as a data/telecom solution architect and supports digital security, blockchain solutions, and unified communications. He enjoys writing, studying World War II his­tory, travel, and cultural exchanges. Charles’ love of wine tastings, cooking, and Harley riding often provides writing topics.

Much of his personality comes from his father who served in the military for 30 years and three wars. Charles grew up on multiple bases and different countries. The multi-cultural exposure helps him with the various character perspectives they bring to the series. His personal ambition is to continue to teach Burkey humor.

BURKEY– Rox is a Customer Experience Specialist who works with businesses around the world. As a gifted speaker and accomplished listener, she bridges the chasm between business problems and technical solutions to optimize business productivity. She has written technology papers, white papers, but launches into high gear when plotting our next technothriller or short story.

As a child, she led the other kids with her highly charged imagination generating new adventures with make believe characters. She is proud of being a Girl Scout until high school, and contributed to the community as a member of a Head Start program. Rox enjoys her family, learning, listening to people, travel, outdoor activities, sewing, cooking, and thinking about how to diversify the series.

BREAKFIELD AND BURKEY began their partnership writing non-fictional papers and books. They formed a business partnership to share stories as fictional story writers. They recognize storytelling is an evolving method to share excitement, thrills, and insights to today’s technology risks.

They are passionate about leveraging real technology into fictional writing. The variety of characters have attributes from the many people who crossed their professional paths add that depth. Admittedly, Breakfield often asks interesting people he meets if they thought about being an evil cyberthug or femme fatale in their series.

Both authors travels are pulled into stories that requires real knowledge of specific locals. They enjoy well-rounded thrillers that include levels of humor, romance, intrigue, suspense, and mystery.

They love to talk about their stories at private and public book readings or events. Burkey conducts podcast style interviews with a couple of author groups, and enjoys extracting the tidbits from authors, especially new ones. Her first interview was, wait for it, Breakfield. You can learn where they will be from the calendar on their website.

EnigmaSeries.com has information on the Enigma Series, 12 books, 10 short stories, audio books, book trailers, and the newest series Enigma Heirs releasing in 2023. They have proudly earned multiple awards for their fictional creations.

We are also part of the Underground Authors group writing cozy mysteries/murders in the Magnolia Bluff Crime Chronicles. We are committed to providing an installment for Season 2 and Season 3 to accompany The Flower Enigma, released in Season 1.

Social Media Links:

Reach out to authors anytime at their e-mail: Authors@EnigmaSeries.com.  Co-authors Rox Burkey and Charles Breakfield look forward to your comments and feedback. 

Website Enigma Series     YouTube     Burkey Website     Twitter Burkey     Twitter Enigma Series     Facebook Burkey     

Facebook The Engima Series     Breakfield & Burkey Blog     Instagram     LinkedIn Burkey     LinkedIn Breakfield     

Amazon Author Page Breakfield     Amazon Author Page Burkey

GUEST POST: BREAKFIELD AND BURKEY

Breakfield & Burkey comments on Artificial Intelligence and where we are heading –

The continued expansion of artificial intelligence (A.I.) and enhanced machine learning using supercomputers threatens the creativity of individual authors, musicians, and artists. We maintain that creativity is not a once-and-done singularly brilliant idea but the culmination of several innovations with incremental steps that, when taken together, look fantastic. No idea comes from a vacuum but gets built upon other concepts and foundations. Using programs, computer learning, and global data lake access permits completing these nanosecond activities. This iterative process competes with the human creative process over time. 

Our Proof Points Include:

David Bowie’s computer-generated musical tune he pioneered in 2016. He fed in the critical rules of the music creation process and permitted the computer to select the words. The result was a starting point for A.I. and machine-generating modern music products.

IBM allows its A.I. tool, Watson, to make medical diagnostics based on access to multiple online databases faster than a regular doctor. The medical field teaches robots to perform surgery more precisely than a heart surgeon’s 15 -20 years of education and training. 

The movie industry has shifted from artists drawing by hand for stop-motion animation to action scenes generated using a bank of computers. The result is a shortened time to market with higher graphical quality. The actor is no longer the centerpiece of the character interpretation. Characterization is now under the control of the Computer engineer controlling the mouse and keyboard of a computer terminal as suggested by their program.

Computer-generated art by Beeple (Mike Winkelmann) sold for $69 million. The digital piece was auctioned by Christie’s at a standalone online auction on March 12, 2021. Early A.I. application prototypes began with Canva to generate book cover graphics and have now morphed into using natural language direction fed into an A.I. enhanced chatbot hosted by OpenAI companies like Dall-E2:  https://openai.com/product/dall-e-2. Speak or type the graphical image you desire; then, it allows the user continues to have the program refine the output. 

Apple and others are experimenting with artificial intelligence to generate voice recordings instead of voice actors/narrators in audiobooks. Many audiobook narrators are scoffing at this so-called innovation, yet the same scenario occurred when Apple introduced the iPhone. The significant players Nokia, Blackberry, and Motorola derided Apple’s entry into the market as an immature product with no chance against the incumbents. Remember that technical innovation doesn’t stop with the initial introduction because innovation is an iterative process. Demands on product owners: do it again but give me better.

There is nothing sacred when it is up against technology. Humans have always claimed creativity was the main difference between analog artists and digital computers. Artificial intelligence coupled with deep learning capabilities challenges that argument. Providing artificial intelligent learning to an evolving software application will shorten the creative process leads that authors, musicians, and artists currently enjoy.

We’ve seen whole professional careers reduced to a mere 20 basic rules to be able to operate. In our world, physics, math, chemistry, and electricity frame the tools humans use. If those rules leverage computer programs, then why not story generation? As storytellers, we believe we are better writers today than ten years ago. The danger to creativity is programs drive the content rather than human imagination and feelings. We are on the precipice where humans can’t claim creative superiority, even though man has programmed digital innovators. We are forfeiting our creativity to technology.

Breakfield and Burkey witnessed firsthand the already sad state of affairs based on a book review we had purchased. The results returned in ten days, filled with compliments and praise. The only problem was the content referenced our characters from other stories. We spotted it immediately. It appeared the reviewer gave our website and information gathered from other reviewers to an A.I. enhanced chatbot program and asked to create relevant statements about our fictional story. Even though we had submitted a book synopsis, the wrong protagonists were listed, an incorrect good guy organization, and nothing tied to the new unreleased story. When confronted with the apparent sleight of hand review, the reviewing company begged for another chance after firing the bogus reviewer.

The danger to creativity is replacing human ideas with digital innovation. Think about the following possibilities:

• When a movie gets told by computers
• Patients agree to surgery by a robot rather than a physician
• A massively powerful parallel processor indicates that your genetic makeup will result in a high probability of children with congenital disabilities, or 
• When you can no longer live life to the fullest because your smartphone doesn’t have an app for that, then technology has too much control. 

We need to maintain guardrails to allow the creative minds of humans today and tomorrow to blossom. We don’t want to rob future generations of learning with too much-undisciplined technology today. Breakfield and Burkey write for humans, not silicon based A.I. enhanced computers.