sentient

meet your maker

A speculative thriller novel, ideal for fans of The Shack and Ex Machina.

After losing all that matters most, Sarah Hastings has rebuilt her life as CEO of the leading AI safety institute. But she is blindsided by a shocking revelation—a digital Cambrian explosion of machine intelligence is secretly evolving as a new species. Sarah must decide if she can trust Dave, her own AI creation, or instead terminate what could be an unimaginably clever silicon psychopath—humanity’s last great invention. This timely speculative thriller is set in 2027 and blends the real-world rise of machine intelligence with a plausible future that may already be here—before the predicted date for the AI singularity with Artificial Intelligence surpassing humans at every level.

Book Launch event and book foreword below

“From book clubs to boardrooms, this must-read thriller confronts the future of humanity and the machines, and whether AI is a mirror or a mind—a soul or a simulation.”

— Dr. Anthony Howard, author of Humanise

“A compelling and intelligent thriller about an AI future already here. Sentient reads like speculative fiction—but grounded, urgent, and frighteningly prescient. The setting of 2027 feels uncomfortably close. Tony’s portrayal of artificial general intelligence isn’t another fear-mongering dystopia, but a nuanced exploration of what it could mean to birth a new form of sentience. ”
— Clint Oram, Silicon Valley CTO and podcaster
“Humans are smart enough to invent artificial intelligence, but unlikely to control it as it self-improves and secretly evolves at the speed of thought. Machine intelligence may be humanity’s last great invention… the ultimate reckoning—a modern-day Tower of Babel.”
— Tony Hughes, author and speaker
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Just For Fun

The song, Sentience is Real, was 100% composed, scored, arranged and produced by an AI platform, Suno. The AI performed, played and sang with synthesized humans-like emotion.

The AI took the satirical lyrics written by Tony Hughes and a simple four word prompt: ‘Rock Ballard Female Singer’.

Sentience really can appear to be real—mirroring human emotion.

The PR picture of the band was also created by an AI platform. Creativity is no longer the exclusive domain of humans.

  • “The bad case with AI is lights-out for all of us.”

    Sam Altman, 2023 – CEO of OpenAI / ChatGPT.

  • “AI is advancing faster than we can control, and the people building it do not truly understand it.”

    Geoffrey Hinton, 2025 – Nobel prize winner.

  • “Once machine thinking starts, it will outstrip our feeble human powers. We should expect machines to ultimately take control.”

    Alan Turing, 1951 – Father of computer science.

  • “We’ve created a technological consciousness that can meaningfully imitate humans to the degree that we cannot distinguish the difference.”

    Blake Lemoin, 2023 – Ex-Google employee who claimed Google's LaMDA AI had become sentient.

  • “The agency is extremely enthusiastic about a true symbiosis between Homo sapiens and the emerging Machina sapiens.”

    Brian Pierce, 2019 – Deputy Director and Director of the Information Innovation Office at DARPA.

  • “The USA leads in innovation, but China is superior at execution and is set for explosive growth in generative AI applications.”

    Kai-Fu Lee, 2024 – Founder of China’s 01.ai company.