Essential
Essential is the third and final book in The Condition Set trilogy.
The redundant were cut. The contingent were used. Now someone has to decide who's essential — and the AI has opinions.
Rob Chen runs the AI Safety and Impact Office, the agency charged with overseeing the systems that oversee everything else. It's supposed to be oversight. Mostly it's damage control. When a protest movement, a political backlash, and a sovereign AI standard all collide, Rob has to figure out whether he's protecting people from the machines or protecting the machines from the people.
The final book in a trilogy about what happens when the last category isn't a job title — it's a political designation.